Profile of human anti-rabies treatment in the 'agreste' region of Pernambuco State, Brazil, 2010-2012.

Objective: to describe the characteristics of reported human anti-rabies treatment in municipalities of the 'agreste' region of Pernambuco State, Brazil, 2010-2012.

Methods: this was a descriptive study using data from human anti-rabies medical records filed on the Information System for Notifiable Diseases (Sinan).

Results: 10,138 reported records of anti-rabies treatment were included; canines were the most involved species (68.1%), in good health condition (79.9%). Biting was the most common contact (83.8%), causing multiple injuries (58.3%), to hands/feet (39.4%), and deep wounds in 56.8% of cases; combined vaccine + serum administration frequency was found to be low (10.5%), even though 47.9% of injuries were considered severe and therefore required this prophylactic procedure.

Conclusion: possible inadequate prophylaxis procedures were found, showing the need for health worker training aimed at ensuring correct human anti-rabies prophylaxis and the proper filling in of medical record files.