International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | April 2021 | Vol 8 | Issue 4 Page 1558 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Aung EEP et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2021 Apr;8(4):1558-1564 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Impact of health education on preventive measures of Rabies among primary school teachers in Mandalay, Myanmar Ei Ei Phyo Aung 1 , Nang Mie Mie Htun 2 *, Pa Pa Soe 2 INTRODUCTION Rabies is a neglected tropical disease caused by rabies virus of the genus lyssavirus, and it is almost invariably fatal following the onset of the symptoms. 1 Dog bites has become a serious and underestimated public health problem in recent years and is the most probable cause of rabies in worldwide. Although there are no global estimates of rabies incidence, studies suggest that rabies account for tens of millions of injuries annually. 2 In South-East Asia region, 40% of human rabies deaths occur in children who are younger than 15 years. Dog bites is the primary cause of 96% of human rabies in South-East Asia Region (SEAR). It is found that only around 20% of the 19 million humans bitten by dogs in SEAR receive one or more doses of rabies vaccine for preventive measures. 3 Even though government organization had several dog population control program, the more feasible and effective projects are still necessary to get successful rabies elimination program. 4 ABSTRACT Background: Rabies is an exceptionally fatal zoonotic disease and major public health problem in developing countries. Health knowledge of preventive measures of rabies among primary school teachers is paramount to cultivate their students and create a secure and safe environment since primary school students are the most vulnerable group. The study aimed to assess the effect of health education on knowledge of preventive measures of rabies among primary school teachers. Methods: A pre and post-test intervention study was conducted among randomly selected 64 primary school teachers from 7 Townships in Mandalay from July to October, 2020. An educational intervention was conducted by contributing 4 sheets of pamphlets and appearing 5 minutes education video record and reassessment was done one month later. Results: The mean knowledge scores before and after intervention were 40.59±4.85 and 47.75±4.02 showing statistically significant improvement (p<0.001). Mean of the improvement percentage was 19.38±5.06. Out of 64 participants, 37.5% had good knowledge in pre-test which improved to 95.3% in post-test (p<0.05). Although, age, marital status, having children and having stray dogs near school compound were adjusted in multiple linear regression, there was no statistical significance association with improvement percentage. Conclusions: There is improvement of knowledge status, which is not influenced by sociodemographic factors, following educational intervention. This highlights the need of continuing medical education for preventive measures of rabies for both primary school teachers and primary school students. Keywords: Health education, Knowledge of preventive measures, Rabies, Primary school teachers, Myanmar 1 Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health and Sports, Pyin Oo Lwin District, Myanmar 2 Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Medicine, Mandalay, Ministry of Health and Sports, Myanmar Received: 21 January 2021 Accepted: 01 March 2021 *Correspondence: Dr. Nang Mie Mie Htun, E-mail: nangmiemiehtun@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20211203