Background Rabies is a public health problem in developing countries like India accounting for the second-highest number of rabies-related deaths worldwide. Anti-rabies vaccine (ARV) is the only proven and effective way of preventing death in this 100% fatal disease. However, compliance is a real concern. This study aims to assess the compliance of ARV and rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) among the ARV-clinic beneficiaries and also the knowledge of the health workers regarding animal bite management. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in an ARV clinic of a community health centre in a rural Odisha (Eastern India) between February and April 2019. All the beneficiaries attending the ARV clinic were followed up for 28 days to assess their ARV and RIG compliance. Data were collected using a pre-designed semi-structured questionnaire and analysis was performed using SPSS v.22 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA). Proportion was calculated for categorical variables and mean for continuous variables. Chi-square test was applied to test for significance of categorical variables. Results A total of 468 beneficiaries were followed up. More than half (59.8%) of the animal bite victims had a category-II bite, followed by 33.4% having category-III, and 6.8% having a category-I bite. Around three-fourth were exposed to dog bite. Only 52.3% of the patients were compliant with ARV, and 49.4% were compliant with RIG. Knowledge of the health workers regarding wound management was found to be sub-optimal. Conclusion Poor ARV compliance was seen among the beneficiaries. Awareness activities need to be strengthened further to improve health-seeking behaviour. The significant gap in knowledge of the health workers indicates the need for professional training at regular intervals.
Keywords: animal bite management; anti-rabies vaccine; compliance; health worker; rabies immunoglobulin; rural india.
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