So, if you’re one of the few people who follow me on Facebook, you’ll know that I share pretty much all the news stories I come across that have to do with Rabies. Why, might you ask?? Is it a morbid fascination with this uniformly fatal virus? Is it a secret plot to get you to vaccinate your pet so I can become disgustingly rich by giving out more Rabies vaccines? Is it my vet nerd brain that loves studying and sharing the many ways that human health and animal health are interrelated? Probably all of the above, although I’m still waiting for my millions from all the rabies shots I’ve tricked people into paying for over the years.
But seriously, we all need to take rabies seriously!! It is truly a disease where there are no second chances. Once you know you have it, there is typically nothing that can be done to save you. So, prevention is key! Want to know more??? Great, cause I’m gonna tell you more than you ever wanted to know!
The Rabies virus is an RNA virus that can affect any mammal, including humans. The most common species to harbor rabies in the US are bats, racoons, foxes, skunks and mongooses. But again, all mammals are susceptible. There have been cases of cows and horses with rabies. And of course, dogs and cats can and do get rabies. In other parts of the world, rabies is more widespread among dogs.
Rabies is typically transmitted when a rabid mammal bites another animal or human and breaks the skin (although there have been rare cases of transmission through organ donation. Ahhhh!!). This allows the virus present in the saliva to enter the body of the bite victim and eventually travel up the nerves to the spinal cord and brain. In some cases, it can take 6 months for the virus to reach the brain and start replicating and causing signs. The virus attacks the brain and causes respiratory failure, but not before causing changes in the brain that often make the animal become aggressive and likely to bite. By this point the virus has also reached the salivary glands and is transmitted in saliva to any bite victims. Rabies can cause a range of different signs, but no one, not even a veterinarian or physician, can tell if an animal or human has rabies just by looking at them. In veterinary medicine, it is generally recognized that once an animal starts showing neurological signs associated with rabies, they will die within 10 days.
Ok, so this is getting depressing. What’s the good news? This disease is 100% preventable. And in the very early stages after possible exposure (i.e. way before you know for sure if you’ve been infected,) there is a treatment that can quite literally save your life.
But first, prevention: vaccines! Vaccinate your dogs, cats and ferrets. Plain and simple. Indoor or outdoor. Vaccinate regularly throughout your pets’ lives as your veterinarian recommends. In some cases, horses and cows will be vaccinated. Some public health efforts focus on oral rabies vaccine baits for wild mammals as well. But pet owners must vaccinate their own pets to reduce transmission of this deadly virus. Did you know vets get rabies vaccines too?
More prevention: stay away from wildlife!! That means don’t touch them, don’t feed them, don’t try to care for them when they are sick or injured. Just don’t. I know that sounds harsh. But no good comes from doing that. If you see a sick or injured wild animal, call animal control. They are experts at handling and caring for wild animals in these circumstances. Yes, it may mean the animal gets euthanized. But if that is the case, it was suffering to begin with and may have been rabid. Plus, if animal control has the animal, they can have it tested for rabies. This allows for prompt quarantining of any other animals that may have been exposed and treatment for any possible human exposures. There have been some really sad stories over the years of humans who had interactions with bats who ended up having rabies. In many cases the individual had some understanding that they should seek medical care but decided not to (see this heartbreaking story about a little boy and this one from 2021 where a man woke up to a bat in his room). In all cases, the human victim died as a result (check out this story for a rare exception!). Don’t let this be you.
Treatment: If you have been bitten or otherwise exposed to a sick mammal, seek medical care right away. Be prepared to give details about what exposure you have had. If you wake up and find that there is a bat in your bedroom (this actually happens), don’t let the bat fly away if possible. Get care right away, even if you don’t think you were bitten (bat teeth are super tiny). Not letting the bat fly away will allow animal control to come and test the bat for rabies. Treatment for humans is called post-exposure prophylaxis. It’s a fancy way to say we’re gonna treat you just in case you were exposed, because it’s the only chance we get. Once rabies reaches your brain, it’s too late. And your body takes too long to make antibodies to it. So they give you antibodies as part of the treatment along with a rabies vaccine. It’s not fun, but better than dying. If your provider doesn’t take your exposure seriously when you seek treatment, find one who will!
Cool One Health trivia: The early 1990s, cattle farmers in India started using diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID, like aspirin or ibuprofen) originally meant for humans in cattle because it worked really well for pain and fevers and was really cheap. Soon after, there was a huge die-off of the vulture species that used to scavenge the cattle carcasses. It took a long time to figure out that the birds were being killed by the diclofenac in the cattle carcasses. Since the vultures were not there to scavenge, other animals came in, like rats and feral dogs. The feral dog population exploded and is believed to have at least partially contributed to a rabies epidemic in the country that killed an estimated 47,300 people between 1992 and 2006. See the story here. What’s the moral? We are all connected in ways we may not even realize…
Take home points: Vaccinate your pets, even indoor only cats! Stay away from wildlife. Take rabies seriously. Your vet is your best source of advice and information when there is any doubt, and we work to keep both animals and humans safe and healthy. That’s my two cents on rabies. Thanks for reading!
For more reading, check out the CDC website here!