Rabies

Lyssavirus rabies

•Order= Mononegavirales (viruses with nonsegmented, negative-stranded RNA genomes

•Family= Rhabdoviridae (viruses with “bullet” shape

•Genus= Lyssavirus•Species= Rabies virus

In 1880, Louis Pasteur began his research on Rabies. During this time, mysterious deaths from “hydrophobia” (fear of water) were popping up all over Europe. Pasteur identified the virus by growing it in rabbits. His team was then able to remove the spinal cords of these infected rabbits and expose them to air, as a result weakening the virus. Vaccines were then created using these weakened forms of the rabies virus.

Joseph Meister

9 years old•First person Pasteur inoculated for rabies on July 6, 1885•First person successfully treated for the infection

Transmission

According to the CDC, in 2008, raccoons accounted for 34.9% of

all rabid wildlife cases…

…Bats accounted for 26.4%...

…Skunks accounted for 23.2%...

Symptoms

•Hydrophobia

•Anxiety, stress and Tension

•Aggressiveness'

•Hallucinations

•Foaming of mouth

•Increased Salvia and Tears

•Muscle spasms

•Fever

•Headache

Incubation period ranges from 10 days to 7 years. The average incubation period is 3 to 7 weeks.

Treatment

•If there is a risk of a possible rabies infection patients are given a

series of preventive vaccines in combination with human rabies

immunolglobulin the day the bite occurred.

•These precautionary measures are given regardless of a

confirmed diagnoses because once the symptoms appear few

people survive it.

Jeanna Giese leaves the hospital as the ONLY known unvaccinated Rabies survivor

In the summer of 2004, in Wisconsin, Jeanna Giese was bitten by a rabid bat. Jeanna didn’t see a doctor and forgot about the bite until her rabies symptoms began months later. Her doctor had to choice but to act on a last minute idea and put Jeanna into a chemically induced coma for 6 days, thankfully allowing her immune system time to create antibodies and fight the virus.

In 2008 in the United States, of the nearly 121,000 animals/humans tested:

•6,841 animal rabies cases

•2 human cases

Even though human rabies cases are very rare in this country, prevention efforts are imperative because once the symptoms appear very few people survive the disease

It’s a wild animal’s dream come true when food drops from the sky. An Oral Rabies vaccine is concealed in flavorful morsels and scattered throughout wildlife habitats from

airplanes.

Prevention Efforts

Rabies in humans is 100% preventable, yet worldwide more than 55,000 people die from this disease every year. That’s equal to 1

person every 10 minutes, so by the time this class is over today an average of 9 people throughout the world will have succumbed to

this disease. In 2006, the global Alliance for Rabies Control was formed to raise awareness and become part of the effort to

eliminate this horrible disease.