Woman Dies from Rabies in France After Cat Scratch in North Africa

Rabies continues to kill in France. On Thursday, the Pasteur Institute announced the death of a patient who succumbed to the rabies virus on Monday. The hospital said she had presented herself to the emergency room on October 7, accompanied by a man, and that both had been "injured by a cat in a Maghreb country a few weeks earlier," reports Le Parisien "As soon as she was hospitalized, the medical team identified that the patient was presenting clinical signs compatible with a suspected diagnosis of rabies. Despite rapid management in intensive care, the patient died," the statement transmitted by the Reims University Hospital said. Preventively taken care of (post-exposure prophylactic vaccination and monitoring), the patient is out of danger and has been able to return home.

"France has been officially recognized as rabies-free (excluding bats) since 2001 and the last indigenous case in humans dates back to 1924," the hospital recalled in its press release. Since 1970, "25 cases of rabies have been observed in humans in metropolitan France, all having contracted the disease abroad in areas where the virus circulates, for the vast majority following a bite by a sick animal." While human-to-human transmission of rabies "has never been demonstrated, despite the high number of cases in the world, apart from transmission through grafts," "the Regional Health Agency of Grand Est has identified the caregivers in direct contact with this patient so that the need for anti-rabies vaccination can be evaluated on a case-by-case basis," the hospital added. The seriousness of the declared disease or even the theoretical risk requires it.

Would this Maghreb country where the French woman was scratched by a wild cat be Morocco? More than 400 cases of animal rabies and more than 20 deaths are recorded each year in the kingdom despite the national strategy based on three axes: vaccination of owned dogs, elimination of stray dogs and awareness-raising, especially in rural areas.