Ahead World Rabies Day 2019: What you need to know about Rabies

As veterinarians and pet owners around the world prepare to mark the 13^th World Rabies Day on 28^th September, Animal Times Africa has compiled facts about the preventable disease.

With the theme: Rabies: Vaccinate to Eliminate, the event focuses on vaccination, the foundation of all rabies control efforts. Here are interesting facts about the disease so lethal but preventable.

• Rabies is a virus that is usually spread by the bite or scratch of an animal already infected.
• It is usually too late to safe a patient once symptoms appear.
• Globally tens of thousands deaths results from rabies annually.
• Rural areas of Southeast Asia and Africa account for high rabies infections.
• Over 95 percent of infections are caused by dogs.
• Treatment must be administered before symptoms appear for a patient to survive.
• Symptoms include neurological problems and a fear of light and water.
• Vaccinating dogs and cats prevents them from rabies.
• Rabies RNA virus is of the rhabdovirus family.
• The virus can affect the body in one of two ways: It enters the peripheral nervous system (PNS) directly and migrates to the brain or it replicates within muscle tissue, where it is safe from the host’s immune system. From here, it enters the nervous system through the neuromuscular junctions.
• Once inside the nervous system, the virus produces acute inflammation. Coma and death soon follow.
• There are two types of rabies: Furious, or encephalitic rabies: This occurs in 80 percent of human cases. The person is more likely to experience hyperactivity and hydrophobia.
• Paralytic or “dumb” rabies: Paralysis is a dominant symptom.
• Rabies is most common in countries where stray dogs are present in large numbers, especially in Asia and Africa.
• The virus is transmittable through saliva and can develop if a person receives a bite from an infected animal, or if saliva from an infected animal gets into an open wound or through a mucous membrane, such as the eyes or mouth.
• Rabies cannot pass through unbroken skin.
• Any mammal can harbor and transmit the virus, but smaller mammals, such as rodents, rarely get infected or transmit rabies.
• Rabies progresses in five distinct stages including: incubation, prodrome, acute neurologic period, coma and death.
• Rabies may last from between three and twelve weeks but can take as little as five days or more than two years.
• The closer the bite is to the brain, the sooner the effects are likely to appear.
• During the prodrome stage of rabies, a person may experience coughing and fever.
• Early, flu-like symptoms include: fever of 38 degrees centigrade or above, headache, anxiety, feeling generally unwell, cough, sore throat, nausea and vomiting, discomfort at the site of bite.
• Neurologic symptoms develop including: confusion and aggression, partial paralysis, involuntary muscle twitching, and rigid neck muscles, convulsions, hyperventilation and difficulty breathing, hyper-salivation or producing a lot of saliva, and possibly frothing at the mouth, fear of water, or hydrophobia, due to difficulty swallowing, hallucinations, nightmares, and insomnia, priapism, or permanent erection, in males, photophobia, or a fear of light. Toward the end of this phase, breathing becomes rapid and inconsistent.
• If patient enters a coma, death will occur within a matter of hours, unless they are attached to a ventilator.
• In Switzerland, the authorities distributed vaccine-laced chicken heads throughout the Swiss Alps. The foxes immunized themselves by consuming the vaccine, and the country is now almost free of rabies.
• Keeping bats out of the home, sealing the roof to prevent bats from nesting can help prevent pets from getting infected by bats.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) identifies rabies as a 100-percent vaccine-preventable disease.
• UNO notes that at least 70 percent of dogs in an area must be vaccinated to break the cycle of transmission.
• Rabies is present in 150 countries and on all continents except Antarctica and the Arctic.
• Islands such as New Zealand, Australia, Mauritius and the Seychelles, are helped by their natural isolation.
• India has the highest number of rabies cases.