Rabies
The initial symptoms of rabies resemble those of other systemic viral infections (Anderson, 1984). Two kinds of central nervous system (CNS) presentation can be seen: the furious form in 70% of all cases and the paralytic form in the remainder (WHO, 2013).
The furious form usually lasts around 12 days on average (range 9–17.8 days) (Udow, 2014). The paralytic form has a longer survival period of 22 days on average (range 18–28 days) and generally results in death.
Case fatality proportion
Once the symptomatic disease onset is confirmed the case fatality proportion is considered to be 100%.
Model input summary
Table 1. Transition probabilities used in the outcome tree
Health outcome |
Distribution of health states in health outcome |
Transition probability |
Source/assumption |
Symptomatic infection (Furious form) (Paralytic form) |
70% 30% |
|
WHO, 2013 |
Fatal cases |
|
100% |
WHO, 2013 |
Table 2. Disability weights and duration
Health outcome |
Disability Weight (DW) (Haagsma, 2015) |
Duration |
||
DW |
Label |
In years |
Source |
|
Symptomatic infection
(Furious form)
(Paralytic form) |
0.655 (0.579-0.727)
As above
As above |
Intensive Care Unit admission
As above
As above |
0.033 (0.025-0.049)
0.060 (0.049-0.077) |
Udow, 2014
Udow, 2014 |
References
Anderson LJ, Nicholson KG, Tauxe RV, Winkler WG. Human rabies in the United States, 1960 to 1979: Epidemiology, diagnosis, and prevention. Ann Intern Med 1984;100:728-735.
Haagsma JA, Maertens de Noordhout C, Polinder S, Vos T, Havelaar AH, Cassini A, Devleesschauwer B, Kretzschmar ME, Speybroeck N, Salomon JA. Assessing disability weights based on the responses of 30,660 people from four European countries. Population Health Metrics 2015; 13: 10
Udow S, Marrie R, Jackson A. Clinical Features of Dog- and Bat-Acquired Rabies in Humans. Clinical Infectious Diseases Volume 57, Issue 5 Pp. 689-696.
WHO. Rabies. Fact Sheet N°99. Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/.