Global burden of rabies in 204 countries and territories, from 1990 to 2019: results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

•Rabies deaths were 13,743.44 (95% uncertainty interval: 6019.13-17,938.53) in 2019.•The global disease burden of rabies had declined over the past 30 years.•The disease burden of rabies was closely related to the sociodemographic index level. Rabies is an acute lethal infectious disease caused by a lyssavirus infection. In 2018, the World Health Organization proposed a global strategic plan to end human rabies deaths by 2030. However, systematic studies on the global rabies disease burden and epidemiological trends are scarce. We extracted the disease burden and epidemiological data of rabies worldwide in the preceding 30 years from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 and performed a comprehensive analysis. In 2019, the incident cases of rabies worldwide were 14,075.51 (95% uncertainty interval: 6124.33-21,618.11), and the number of deaths was 13,743.44 (95% uncertainty interval: 6019.13-17,938.53), both of which were lower than that in 1990. With the improvement of the sociodemographic index, the incident cases, the number of deaths, age-standardized incidence rate, age-standardized incidence death rate, and disability-adjusted life years of rabies all showed downward trends. Adolescents and adults aged