India’s recorded rabies deaths fall far below ICMR study estimate
Indian government surveillance recorded 54 rabies deaths in 2024, while an ICMR-led study estimated that about 5,726 people die from the disease annually. The figures use different methods, and officials say incomplete reporting makes it difficult to establish the country’s full rabies burden.
Government surveillance figures for India show far fewer recorded rabies deaths than an ICMR-led study’s estimate of the country’s annual toll, highlighting major gaps in mortality reporting. The study, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, estimated that 5,726 people die of rabies in India each year. By contrast, the Health Ministry’s IDSP-IHIP system reported 21 deaths in 2022, 50 in 2023 and 54 in 2024.
The Registrar General of India’s Medical Certification of Cause of Death system recorded 66 medically certified rabies deaths in 2022 and 271 in 2023. The system does not cover every registered death, however. It accounted for 22.3% of registered deaths in 2022 and 22% in 2023.
The figures cannot be directly compared because the systems measure different things. IDSP-IHIP is a disease surveillance platform, while the medical certification system records medically certified causes of death. The ICMR figure is a modelled estimate rather than a hospital or government count.
For its study, ICMR researchers surveyed 337,808 people in 78,807 households across 60 districts in 15 States. They estimated that India experiences about 9.1 million animal bites annually, including approximately 5.6 million dog bites. The researchers combined survey findings, laboratory data and a probability decision-tree model to estimate how many bite victims develop rabies and die.
A senior Health Ministry official said the contrasting figures demonstrated a large difference between reported surveillance deaths and estimated mortality, rather than equivalent counts. Former ICMR chief Nirmal Kumar Ganguly said incomplete data remained a challenge because some cases and deaths occurred outside measurable parts of the health system. He called for dog vaccination, timely human post-exposure vaccination and measures to interrupt transmission.
Rabies is almost invariably fatal once symptoms appear but is preventable through dog vaccination and prompt treatment. The study found gaps in follow-up care, including incomplete vaccination courses and limited use of passive immunisation. India has set a goal of eliminating dog-mediated human rabies by 2030.
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