The wave front spread rate of Chinese ferret-badger rabies in eastern Taiwan

This study used epidemiological data of Chinese ferret-badger (CFB) rabies in eastern Taiwan, the Hualien County, from July 2013 to December 2020 to estimate its wave front spread rate. The first case of the CFB rabies virus in eastern Taiwan was detected in Zhuoxi Township in Hualien County on July 31, 2013. Our technique regressed TIME (months elapsed from the first case in Zhuoxi and the first case in each infected township invaded by the first case of CFB rabies) on DISTANCE (kilometers between locations of the first case in Zhuoxi and centroids of each infected township invaded by the first case of CFB rabies), using simple linear regression. The mean rate of wave front spread was 10.698 kilometers/year. The correlation between TIME and DISTANCE was R = 0.9273 at p = 0.0001. As CFB rabies has only occurred in China and Taiwan, studies on its epidemiology are extremely rare. This paper is the first study to estimate the wave front spread rate of CFB rabies in the world.