An acute and potentially fatal disease, caused by a rhabdovirus called Lissavirus, which affects the nervous system of animals and may be communicated to humans. The disease is ENDEMIC in dogs and wolves in some countries and also occurs in foxes, coyotes, skunks, and vampire bats. Rabies is highly infectious from the bite of an animal already affected, but the chance of infection from different animals varies. Thus only about one person in every four bitten by rabid dogs contracts rabies, whilst the bites of rabid wolves and cats almost invariably produce the disease. Infection from person to person is very rare, but those looking after someone with the disease should take precautions to avoid being bitten or allowing themselves to be contaminated by the patient's saliva, as this may contain the virus.
Thanks to QUARANTINE measures, since 1897 and the Pet Travel Scheme from 2001, rabies is rare in Great Britain. This involves all imported dogs, cats or ferrets requiring a Pet Passport or a third-country official veterinary certificate, being microchipped and having been vaccinated against rabies.
In animals there are two types of the disease: mad rabies and dumb rabies. In the former, the dog (or other animal) runs about, snapping at objects and other animals, unable to rest; in the latter, which is also the final stage of the mad type, the limbs become paralysed and the dog crawls about or lies still.
In humans the incubation period is usually 6–8 weeks, but may be as short as ten days or as long as two years. The disease begins with mental symptoms, the person becoming irritable, restless and depressed. Fever and DYSPHAGIA follow. The irritability passes into a form of MANIA and the victim has great difficulty in swallowing either food or drink.
Immediate, thorough and careful cleansing of the wound-surfaces and surrounding skin followed by a course of rabies vaccine therapy.
Only people bitten (or in certain circumstances, licked) by a rabid animal or by one thought to be infected with rabies need specific treatment with rabies vaccine, antiserum and one of the IMMUNOGLOBULINS. A person previously vaccinated against rabies who is subsequently bitten by a rabid animal is generally given three or four doses of the vaccine. The vaccine is also used to give protection to those liable to infection, such as kennel-workers and veterinary surgeons. Those who develop the disease require intensive care with ventilatory support, despite which the death rate is high.