Prevalence of rabies virus infection and rabies antibody in stray dogs: a survey in Bangkok, Thailand.

Abstract

To investigate the rabies antigen and antibody prevalences among stray dogs in Bangkok, Thailand, we took both a saliva and serum sample from each of 3314 stray dogs captured once each between December 2003 and June 2004. One 2-year-old female was antigen positive in the latex-agglutination test and confirmed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The overall antibody seroprevalence from the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay that we used was 62% (95% CI: 54, 70%). Antibody seroprevalence was greater for dogs captured within central Bangkok (86% of 1208 dogs captured) than in the dogs captured in the outskirts of the greater metropolitan area (49% of 2106 dogs captured). If our samples of stray dogs are representative, then the seroprevalence achieved from previous vaccination campaigns is too low to protect the dog and human populations.