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Everything I Didn't Know I Didn't Know About Rabies |
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Written by Claire Davies
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 The most dangerous animal in the USA is possibly the humble bat. Before you rush to break out the garlic, this situation has nothing to do with vampires like the ones in the movies, but you do need to watch out for those teeth. 24 out of 32 deaths from rabies in the last ten years have been attributed to bats. Before we upped sticks and moved halfway across the world from the UK to the USA, I didn't know much about rabies. The extent of my knowledge was:
1. The UK didn't have rabies.
2. The UK didn't want rabies.
3. The UK goes to extraordinary lengths to stay that way.
4. When in France, avoid any animal foaming at the mouth.
The first real impact any of this had on me was when we tried to wade through the seemingly endless red tape surrounding the exporting of our ever faithful elderly rescued cat to our newly adopted home. We decided that she would never settle in a new home with new people (let's just say she's rather set in her ways and not the most social of sorts) and having had her for what seems like forever it would be better all round if she traveled with us (I'm not good at goodbyes either). Three different kinds of forms were needed in order for a veterinary surgeon to obtain and release a quantity of killed rabies vaccine. It took some time for the Ministry of Agriculture to decide what the protocol was. I was even told at one point that my cat would need to go into quarantine on arrival. I pointed out the futility of such an exercise in a country that already had rabies. The whole process was one headache from start to finish. All this is made even more amusing (with the benefit of hindsight, naturally) as when we arrived in the US we walked right through immigration with no-one in the least bit interested in our cat or our paperwork. After all the trouble it had taken to get it in order I kept trying to show anyone in uniform, but not one of them cared even a little bit.
With each new family addition since our arrival I have had to research vaccination requirements (also licensing â?" more about THAT another time). When my beardie pup had his shots at six months old when we got him, his vaccination lasted a year. His last booster jab will last him for two years. The cats have their shots but apparently the horses, pig, birds and reptiles don't require them.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there are 50, 000 deaths a year worldwide from rabies. 95% of cases occur in regions where canine rabies is endemic. Places like Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In this country most incidences are in wild animals such as bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes. Less than 10% of cases are in domestic animals, mostly cats, dogs, and cattle. Over the last 100 years cases of human deaths from rabies have fallen from about 100 per year to just about one or two. Animal control and vaccination programmes in domestic animals since the 1940s are credited with effecting this decline. However, as the numbers of rabies cases in dogs decreased, reported cases in wild animals rose.
Look away now if you are squeamish, as they used to say on TV, here comes the gory details.
Rabies virus infects the central nervous system . Symptoms in people include insomnia, anxiety, partial paralysis, agitation, hypersalivation, and hydrophobia. The disease is fatal within a week of symptoms appearing but may be 30 to 50 days after exposure to infection. Once symptoms are apparent the disease is always fatal, often from cardiac or respiratory failure, there is no treatment other than keeping the patient as comfortable as possible. Rabies is usually transmitted via infected saliva from a bite.
Often unknowing victims fail to recognize the seriousness of a bite from a bat, since the trauma is slight. Deaths from rabies in humans occur largely where the victim failed to seek medical assistance because they were unaware of their exposure to the infection. Are you squirming uncomfortably in your chair yet? I know I am!
So, now I know much more about the disease. I can be comforted in the knowledge that Nevada is a state with very low incidences of rabies, so I doubt (and hope) that I never see one in the flesh. We have enough to worry about with sweeping distemper, parvovirus, feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), feine panleukopenia, leptospirosis, and lyme disease, to mention just a few of the nasties round here (this is starting to read more like a horror novel!)
Oh and by the way, they found two feral cats with the plague not far from here in June this year.
Aaaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!
Claire Davies, Lasvagas, USA
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