OBJECTIVES:

There has been a notable increase in the number of human rabies cases in South Africa in 2021. The objective of the study was to determine the prescribing patters of medicines dispensed for, or related to, rabies in Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) group J06 and J07 in 2020 utilising an electronic dispensing database.

METHODS:

A retrospective drug utilisation study was conducted on electronic medicine records of a private sector medical insurance scheme administrator in South Africa. The database contained over 2.6 million records for medicines in 2020. All records for rabies immunoglobulin (J06BB05) and inactivated, whole virus rabies vaccine (J07BG01) were extracted and analysed. No clinical information of patients was available. Basic descriptive statistics were calculated.

RESULTS:

A total of 174 products in ATC Group J06 (immune sera and immunoglobulins) were dispensed to 57 patients, and 7066 vaccines in ATC Group J07 to 5250 patients. Of these, 200 vaccines for the inactivated, whole virus rabies vaccine (J07BG01) were dispensed to 80 patients and seven products for the rabies immunoglobulin to seven patients (amount claimed was R123921.23). The average age of the 81 patients was 32.54 (SD=18.80) years, with 71.60% males. Six of the seven patients (4 males) who received the rabies immunoglobulin, also received the rabies vaccine. Dispensing peaked in January 2020 and increased again towards the end of the year (October to December 2020). Most prescriptions originated in the North-West and Gauteng provinces of South Africa.

CONCLUSIONS:

There was a rabies outbreak in several provinces of South Arica towards the end of 2020 and during 2021. Further studies can provide insight into the Pharmacoepidemiology of rabies in the region. Since rabies can be controlled in animals through rabies vaccination, it is important to also promote rabies vaccination to the owners of domestic animals.