Rabies a disease as old as our civilization, continues to be the most feared of all
communicable diseases. Despite the availability the state-of-the-art tools which ensure near cent percent protection against
rabies, India is the largest contributant to
rabies mortality in the world. A multicentric study was carried out from April 2001 to September 2002 with the objective of assessing the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs and practices (KAP) about animal
bites and
rabies in the general community. The proforma for interviewing the general community was developed and used after field testing. The study was carried out at six selected centres across the country viz. Delhi, Hyderabad, Raipur, Jamnagar, Coonoor and Rajahmundry and was co-ordinated by National Institute of
Communicable Diseases (NICD), Delhi, after thorough briefing of designated nodal officers. A total of 1129 (male: female :: 48.5: 51.5) persons in the age group of 18 to 80 years were interviewed in this study. Of these about 751% of the individuals had attended school at some level and rest were illiterates. 68.7% people had heard about
rabies. In 60.7% of cases the community associates
rabies with dog
bite only. Knowledge about appropriate
wound toilet was found to be inadequate. Only 360 (31.9%0/) people felt that washing the
wound with
soap and water was the best option. Application of indigenous products like chillies (11.4%), turmeric (5.6%),
lime (6.8%),
kerosene oil (2.3%), herbal
paste (4.2%) etc was suggested along with visit to occult medicine practitioner (1.5%) as part of the
bite wound management. People were not aware of number of
injections needed for treatment of animal
bites. Multiple reasons viz negligence and ignorance 354 (31.4%), fear of multiple painful
injections 365 (32.3%), expensive treatment 169 (15%) and long course requiring daily visits to anti-
rabies clinics 73 (6.5%) were cited as reasons for non-compliance of treatment. KAP study suggests that there is need to create awareness amongst the masses regarding epidemiology of the disease and merits of prompt and appropriate post exposure treatment through enhanced IEC activities.