Rabies

Rabies is a viral disease that can spread to humans from animals. It infects the nerves and causes sudden encephalitis (swelling/pain of the brain). Rabies used to be called hydrophobia because one of its symptoms was causing fear to an infected person when trying to drink a liquid such as water. This is also why dogs or wolves with rabies foam at the mouth.

The disease is almost always fatal (people and animals die from it) when the symptoms start. Basically no one has survived having rabies without prior vaccination (only one case, of a 15 year old girl, is documented). There is no treatment and cure for it when the symptoms occur. However, people (and pets) who are treated with vaccines soon after becoming infected have a very good chance to survive.^[1]

The disease is transmitted through the saliva and the blood. From the wound the virus replicates and travels up the nerve to the CNS. The usual form of getting it is a bite of a rabid mammal. Pets, like dogs need to be vaccinated against it, in most countries.

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