Two Cases Of Rabies In Viet Nam After Butchering And Eating A Dog Or A Cat

Eating dog meat, and to a lesser extent cat meat, is common in Asia. In a case- based education article, Heiman Wertheim (Oxford University Clinical Research Unit-Hanoi, Viet Nam) and colleagues describe two patients in Hanoi who died from laboratory-confirmed rabies. Their symptoms developed after butchering, preparing, and consuming either a dog or a cat. The researchers were unable to test the butchered animals for rabies-so they cannot be entirely certain that these animals were the source of the rabies. Nevertheless, they caution that butchering of unvaccinated dogs and cats in rabies-endemic countries should be considered a risk factor for rabies transmission.

Citation:
"Furious rabies after an atypical exposure."
Wertheim HFL, Nguyen TQ, Nguyen KAT, de Jong MD, Taylor WRJ, et al. (2009)
PLoS Med 6(3): e1000044. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000044