RESEARCH ARTICLE h

ie en Gsell et al. BMC Veterinary Research 2012, 8:236 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/8/236persistence of the disease [9]. Dogs are also primarilyHealth Institute, Basel, SwitzerlandFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Since the 1960s, the reported incidence of canine and human rabies has increased in many countries in south-ern and eastern Africa [1,2] even though detection rates and reporting systems have deteriorated [3] and effective human post-exposure prophylaxis and dog rabies vac-cines have become available commercially [4]. Most human rabies deaths worldwide occur in Africa and Asia, with an estimated 24 500 human deaths per year in Africa, more than 100 times the number of cases offi-cially recorded [5]. In Tanzania, canine rabies has been reported throughout the country and is considered en-demic in the Iringa district [6], where 16 persons are reported to have died of rabies at the Iringa Regional Hospital between 1999-2004. Rabies is an acute viral encephalitis transmitted by contact with saliva of an infected carrier on broken skin [5]. Throughout most of Africa and Asia, domestic dogs are the main reservoir of rabies [7,8], well able to ensur