Rabies is a zoonotic disease that is caused by rabies virus and transmitted only in mammals. Domestic dogs are the most common reservoir of the virus, which is associated with more than 99% human deaths caused by dog-mediated rabies in the world. Rabies is one of the most fatal diseases, but it is fully preventable in animals by vaccination. Serological test of rabies virus antibody for samples collected from dogs and cats in Seoul during 2017–2019 was carried out in this study. To investigate antibody seroprevalence of rabies virus for dogs and cats, 2,769 serum samples were taken from 2,408 dogs and 361 cats in various regions of Seoul during 2017– 2019. Antibodies to rabies virus were detected by an indirect ELISA. Of 2,769 tested animal sera, 934 (33.7%) were positive; 886 (36.8%) of 2408 dogs and 48 (13.3%) of 361 cats. Of 990 companion animals, 547 (55.3%) was positive and 387 (21.8%) of 1779 stray animals was positive. These results indicate that antibody seroprevalence to rabies virus is still not enough to prevent rabies and rabies vaccination is required to enhance the antibody seroprevalence for rabies. To improve the situation, much public awareness and policy is needed to prevent the rabies. In addition, reducing stray animals and keeping companion animals from contact with wild animals are indispensable for the prevention of rabies.

Rabies is one of the most dreadful diseases known to human. Annually, more than 55,000 human deaths occur throughout the world. The main transmitters are dogs. In South Korea, urban rabies is eliminated after massive national vaccine programme but rabies is still present in wildlife around northern part of the country near the border. Occasionally, rabies cases are still reported and there are spill over cases from racoon dogs. No human case was reported since 2005. Therefore, risk of rabies from exporting domestic dogs and cats from South Korea is very low. Hence, foreign rabies can be introduced by importing wild carnivores and unvaccinated dogs and cats under the age of three months since the South Korean legislation does not cover them. Therefore, it is essential to update current import regulation to minimise the risk of rabies.

Rabies is a zoonotic disease that causes severe destruction to the central nerve system which is usually fatal. It is one of the most important disease around the world and particular in Asia because of the high costs of prevention and post-exposure treatment. After the recurrence of sylvatic rabies in 1993, the number of raccoon dog mediating rabies cases in Korea has maintained annually until 2011. To better understand the current rabies epidemics in Korea, Korean rabies isolate (SKRBV0601GY) from Gyeonggi province in 2006 was compared with previous isolates in Korea and with isolates originating from the North-East Asia, such as Japan, China and Russia, based on complete nucleoprotein (N) gene sequences. By comparison of the N genes among these viruses, SKRBV0601GY revealed that nucleotide similarity ranged from 97.7 to 99.7%, 96.4 to 97.5%, 91.4 to 96.3%, 89.2 to 90% and 86.1 to 88.1% with Korean isolates, "Arctic-like-2" viruses, "Arctic" viruses, Russian group C - E and Chinese isolates, respectively. Phylogenetic analyses of the isolates revealed that the Korean isolate in 2006 belonged to Korean group B. The topology of the phylogenetic tree of Korean isolates related not the species and year of isolation but the geological location of the virus isolates. All of the Korean isolates showed close relationship to the "Arctic-like-2" virus (Russian group B) more than the "Arctic" virus (Russian group A) and all of the Chinese isolates (Chinese group A, B and C). The "Arctic-like-2" virus group contains the Japanese isolate and Russian group B viruses, originating from the south of East Siberia and Far East in Russia. These molecular data demonstrated that the current rabies epizootic in Korea developed independently of Chinese groups and originated from the "arctic-like-2" viruses in detail.