Rabies is an acute viral encephalomyelitis that is common to both humans and animals, and is untreatable because the rabies virus invades the human body by an extremely specific pathway:It passes through nerve endings at the muscles into the spinal cord and brain so that it can evade the immune system.

Once it multiplies in the brain and spinal cord, it will directly attack the body's control center, causing symptoms such as muscle spasms in the throat and painful swallowing movements. At this time, not to mention drinking water, even the sound of water is afraid, so rabies is also known as "hydrophobia".

Below, "Ask the Doctor" will use interesting medical cartoons to introduce rabies to you in detail.

What's wrong with rabies?

The culprit in rabies is the rabies virus. This guy is different, it doesn't go out of its way.

Viruses in general are like mindless warriors, fighting hard against the body's immune system by virtue of their ability to reproduce, and only succeeding when the immune system is lowered.

The rabies virus is very cunning, it specializes in invading the nervous system and attacking the brain directly, like an assassin playing "Operation Decapitation".

The virus carried in the saliva of animals infected with this virus invades the tissue muscle through bites and scratches, resting briefly and replicating in small amounts. It then silently sneaks into the nervous system through the connection between muscles and nerves: the nerve endings.

It moves rapidly toward the central nervous system, i.e., the spinal and cerebral nerves. It is difficult for the immune system to detect because of the rapidity of movement and the odd routes.

When the virus reaches the brain and spinal cord tissues, it replicates in large numbers, expanding its viral army. It then spreads to the organs controlled by the nervous system and begins to wreak havoc, preventing the organs from working. The body then experiences symptoms such as low-grade fever, headache, and fear and anxiety. The most typical symptom is the fear of water. This is due to the fact that the virus irritates the nerves in the throat, making the throat muscles spasm and swallowing difficult.

The immune army may have reacted at this point and produced antibodies to try to destroy the virus. But it was too late, the virus was not only in large numbers, but had already invaded the command center (central nervous system).

In other words, the immune system hasn't reacted completely and the virus has already caused fatal damage to the brain and spinal nerves.

Brains, the commanding officer, was cut off by a virus, and several chains of command were paralyzed, so even the most bullheaded person would have to die.

What should I do to prevent rabies after being bitten by an animal?

Step 1: Immediately wash repeatedly with soap and running water for at least 15 minutes.

Step 2: Disinfect the wound with iodophor or alcohol and then go to the hospital as soon as possible to treat the wound.

Step 3: The centerpiece, vaccination.Simply put, a rabies vaccine is a processed virus that is injected into the human body to give the immune system an early pass to produce antibodies.

In the unfortunate event that you do contract the rabies virus, the antibodies are able to intercept and destroy the virus before they reach the central nervous system.

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Rabies can be said to make everyone talk about it, and so far, the lack of effective treatment after the onset of rabies has resulted in an almost 100 percent mortality rate. Why can't rabies be cured? This has to do with the rabies virus, which is the cause of rabies.

The gene of the rabies virus contains a specific glycoprotein that binds to the acetylcholine receptor of the nervous system, which determines the neurophilicity of the rabies virus. After entering the body through a break in the skin or mucous membrane, the rabies virus has a strong affinity for nerve tissue and mainly attacks nerve cells in the brainstem and cerebellum, where the very important respiratory centers and other centers of the body are located. The rabies virus rapidly destroys the body's nerve tissue, causing irreversible damage to the central nervous system. Moreover, the virus travels along the course of human nerves, and the target of attack gradually spreads to almost all the nerve tissues, causing the patient to experience spasms of the swallowing muscles as well as the respiratory muscles, and difficulties in hydrophobia, swallowing, and respiration, which ultimately leads to respiratory and circulatory failure, and death usually occurs within 3 to 6 days. There are no drugs or measures that can stop the destruction of the nervous system by this virus, and once the disease develops, it can only be isolated in a single room and treated symptomatically.

Which animals may transmit rabies?

Dogs are not the only ones that can transmit the rabies virus. In fact, almost all warm-blooded animals can be infected with the rabies virus, such as dogs, cats, foxes, wolves, jackals, panthers, raccoons, and bats. Dogs and cats are the most commonly transmitted animals, and more than 90 percent of rabies cases worldwide are caused by rabid dogs infected with the virus. The vast majority of rabies cases in China are caused by dogs or cats, especially dogs. The saliva of some seemingly healthy dogs may also carry the virus, especially some stray dogs that are not vaccinated, the rate of virus can be up to 22.4%, which can also spread rabies.

With rabies, we have the power to prevent but not the power to save. Therefore, if you are bitten by a dog or scratched by a cat, you should seek medical attention at the first opportunity for wound treatment, including thorough flushing and disinfection. The sooner the local wound is treated, the better, and you should aim to rinse the wound immediately and repeatedly with soap and water within 24 hours, and the wound must be treated and cleaned thoroughly. Once a person has been bitten, vaccination is vital, and in severe cases, rabies serum is also required. Rabies vaccine is usually given as one injection on the same day, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, and 28 days, for a total of 5 injections. The doses are the same for adults and children. If the wound is deep, a tetanus antitoxin injection is also given at the same time. Rabies serum contains high potency anti-rabies immunoglobulin, which can directly neutralize the rabies virus, and this process is a race between the antibody and the virus, so it should be applied early, right after the injury, and the earlier the better, and it is almost ineffective if it is used one week after the injury. If you are bitten by a dog again in the first three months after vaccination, you can skip the vaccine, and if you are bitten by a dog within six months, you can strengthen two injections, and if you are bitten by a dog more than six months, you can re-inject the rabies vaccine.

Once rabies strikes, the consequences are very serious. The mortality rate is almost 100 percent. The rabies virus primarily attacks our central nervous system, where the virus spreads along the nerves and causes the central nervous system to fail.

This question also reminds me of a female classmate from my freshman year of high school, our class president. From a doctor's point of view now, her symptoms at that time still match the early symptoms of rabies. Fear of cold. Fear of light. Certainly not to the extent of fear of water, and took a leave of absence to see a doctor. Later, the class teacher held a class meeting and said that after a week of treatment in a provincial hospital, she was finally diagnosed with rabies and died not long afterward. Why is there no cure for rabies until now? How can we prevent this tragedy from happening?

What are the main sources of rabies infection?

Rabies, as the name suggests. Its main source of infection is from dogs infected with the virus. It is certainly not limited to that. Other mammals, such as cats, bats in the wild, and foxes, can carry the rabies virus as a source of infection. In humans, rabies is mainly contracted from rabid dogs.

What are the main symptoms of a rabies attack?

Because of the invasion of the nervous system, predominantly neurological symptoms are present.

1. Preliminary

Low-grade fever, headache and generalized weakness. Due to atypical symptoms, it is easy to be mistaken for having a cold.

2. Excitement period

Fear, fear of light, fear of water, fear of wind, fear of water, when exposed to these external stimuli. Spontaneous spasms of the laryngeal muscles. Also called hydrophobia. This is a typical symptom of a rabies attack. Severe ones cause generalized convulsions and are very painful.

3. Paralysis

After an excitatory phase, the patient will go into delayed paralysis. Mainly the limbs are predominantly paralyzed and there will be a decrease in muscle strength. Finally there is paralysis of the respiratory muscles and often death from respiratory circulatory failure.

Why is rabies so difficult to treat?

Figuratively speaking, the rabies virus, like a death squad, targets the nervous system. After being infected. They rest briefly in the injured muscle tissue. They then quickly reach the brain and spinal cord, where they replicate in large numbers. When the virus enters the nervous system, vaccines and antibodies are not effective. Nerve cell damage will be one less, invading the brainstem and other life centers, human breathing and heartbeat will be affected. The body's tissues and organs are not regulated by the nerves, and the body cannot function normally.

What can be done to prevent this after exposure to high risk factors?

Because rabies has such a high mortality rate. That's why its prevention is so important.

1.continence

After a canine bite, the virus stays in the wound for some time before it moves from the peripheral nerves to the central nerves. This is the time when wound flushing, and disinfection should be done promptly, the sooner the better, to neutralize the virus and prevent rabies. To prevent the virus from invading nerve tissue directly from the wound, one should aim to treat the wound within 24 hours.

Thoroughly wash and rinse all bites and scratches with 20% soapy water (or other mildly alkaline cleanser) alternating with running water under pressure for at least 15 minutes, then wash the wounds with saline (or water can be used as a substitute), and finally absorb any residual fluid with a sterile cotton wool pad, avoiding leaving soapy or cleansing residue on the wounds.

2.The sooner the rabies vaccine, the better.

The sooner you get the rabies vaccine, the better. The best time to get the first shot is within 48 hours of being bitten. Typically, a course of rabies vaccine requires 5 shots, and the exact schedule is 1 intramuscular injection on days 0, 3, 7, 14, and 28. Day 0 is the day of the first vaccination, then the rest and so on.

Here are a few common ideas.

1.Do people bark and act like dogs when rabies strikes?

It's called rabies because the rabies virus is primarily infected in humans by dogs. And it doesn't mean that people act like rabid dogs when they are infected. What are the symptoms of a rabies attack have been described above. There may be strange noises due to laryngeal muscle spasms. However, it is not possible to say that a person with rabies will act like a dog.

2.Can the rabies virus lurk for decades?

There are a number of people who say that the rabies virus can lurk for decades, or even for a lifetime without an attack. In terms of current medical statistics, the incubation period for rabies is usually tens of days to months. The longest case counted by the World Health Organization was six years. If there is an incubation period that long, there is a greater chance of misdiagnosis or secondary exposure.

3.Do healthy dogs and cats transmit rabies?

If a dog or cat is vaccinated regularly, the likelihood of him being contagious can be virtually nil. Healthy dogs and cats that are not vaccinated but do not develop the disease may carry the rabies virus on their bodies, but generally do not cause contagion. In either case, if a dog or cat scratches or bites you, it is always the right choice to get a rabies vaccination at the first opportunity, it is beneficial.

Rabies is a dreadful disease, once the onset of the disease, the mortality rate is 100%, almost no resuscitation, only in the rumors, occasionally there are one or two cases of patients are resuscitated.

Why rabies is untreatable once it has developed

This starts with the characteristics of the rabies virus, which is neurophilic. After a person is bitten, the virus enters the nerve cells around the wound, and then travels along the peripheral nerves and enters the central nerves, that is, our brain. After entering the brain cells, the rabies virus keeps multiplying and destroying the nerve cells, causing damage to the nerve cells, resulting in a series of clinical manifestations, such as: extreme fear of water, fear of wind, episodes of pharyngeal muscle spasms, respiratory difficulties, difficulty in urinating and defecating, incontinence, muscle paralysis, and finally death from respiratory muscle paralysis and medullary paralysis.Once the disease has developed, rabies is irreversible, and neuronal cell necrosis is irreversible, so, once the disease has developed, there is no cure.

The incubation period of rabies can be long or short, generally 1 to 3 months, basically not more than 1 year, the incubation period of rabies and the site of injury, the size and depth of the wound, the patient's immunity and other factors are closely related to the injured part of the brain from the closer the onset of the time is shorter; the more serious the wound, the deeper the bite, the more bleeding, the more viruses into the body, the shorter the incubation period.

Because rabies cannot be treated, only prevention is important. Therefore, once bitten by mammals such as cats and dogs, you need to immediately wash the wound with plenty of water or soapy water, and then immediately go to the hospital or vaccination center for rabies vaccine, as well as immune globulin.

Read all the replies, either copied and pasted from Baidu or made up by myself

First Direct answer, because it's too late to treat it. The rabies virus has no signs during its incubation period, and when it strikes, it acts directly on the host's main nervous system, such as the brain. Existing drugs are limited and slow to kill the nervous system. Before the drugs take effect, the host is already dead.

Secondly, by extension, it can be hypothesized that when rabies can be cured, it means that most of the nerve loss diseases such as hemiplegia and polio can also be cured (hopefully).

Thirdly, it is true that the mortality rate of rabies is almost 100%, why is it almost 100%? Because there are really so two or three people survived, but, their main nervous system have received great damage, cut the current irreversible, in short, a water of imbeciles (no disrespect meant oh).

The reason is very simple, during the attack, the virus has invaded the brain and destroyed the central nervous system, and due to the special nature of the central nervous system, almost one less nerve cell dies, and once the important functional areas of the central nervous system are destroyed, the person dies immediately. Even if the immunity is produced in the central nerve, then this immune effect is fatal to the person.

I've heard from my second uncle, who is now nearly 80 years old, that when he was a child he and his five playmates were playing at the north end of the village and a dog came and bit them all but then the adults in the village came out and killed the dog and my second uncle and the five or six of them who had been bitten by the dog talked about going to Tangtun to get some medication but there were some people who didn't agree and so only three of the families went to get the medicine and each of them took three days' worth of the Chinese medicine continuously and didn't feel a thing after taking it but then a couple of days later two people who hadn't gone to get the medicine became ill and died very quickly but three of them who took the medicine didn't have any trouble at all But after a few days, the two who didn't take the medicine fell ill and died soon after, but my second uncle and the three who drank the Chinese medicine didn't have any problems. The old herbalist has long since disappeared

Rabies has not been completely untreatable so far, as there are currently 5 cases of rabies patients (who were not vaccinated against rabies after infection) who have been cured by the Milwaukee treatment, and a total of 25 rabies patients have been treated by this method, with a success rate of 20%.

This method is to directly give the patient anesthesia, so that the patient directly into a deep coma state, the brain and other nervous systems are completely down, so as to avoid damage to the nervous system. The patient's own immune system is then allowed to clear out the rabies virus.

But this method has not been fully popularized, as the treatment remains controversial. The first of these patients to be cured was bitten by a bat, about ten years ago, and had become a mother of twins the year before. A more recent patient was scratched by a cat. Some experts therefore believe that this virus has a relatively low level of infection, hence the miracle.

Rabies causes about 40,000 or so deaths a year, so that number of cures is really too low to be considered very, very low.

Once the rabies virus enters the body, it quickly binds to nerve cells and soon travels through the nerve fibers to the brain and spinal cord, causing infection throughout the nervous system.

If we want to kill these viruses, many times we kill all the cells that are infected by these viruses. When the nerve cells are destroyed, it is very difficult to regenerate them.

But any disease that is related to nerves or viruses, we honestly can't come up with any effective treatments at this point. Even the viruses that cause colds are very often beyond our reach and can only be cleared by our own immune system.

Plus, once rabies strikes, the onset is so fast that the immune system has no time to organize an effective defense. This is why medical doctors have come up with treatments that put the entire person under deep anesthesia to slow down the propagation and spread of the virus and buy time for the immune system.

Although the rabies virus is still an incurable disease, the rabies vaccine is indeed the most effective vaccine, and once infected, it is essentially immune to disease.

Anna's mom wrote a headline article about rabies the other day. There were a lot of comments below.

Many people say that people in their villages, or people they know died of rabies after being bitten by a dog. Even rabies is worse than AIDS.

And Anna's own childhood neighbor's brother accidentally bitten by a dog, afraid of being scolded by the family did not dare to tell the family, and did not go to find a vaccination, the results of the dog that bit him died the next day. And he arrived half a month later one day was eating appeared not swallowed, choking and coughing phenomenon. And heard the sound of water screamed, the whole body a little cramp, the family rushed him to the hospital, but do not want to after two days the family out, he went to never come back.

The dreaded rabies.

Because once rabies strikes, there's no cure, but with well controlled AIDS you can live well for many more years, even decades.

Lu Hongzhou, a well-known infectious disease expert and secretary of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center (affiliated with Fudan University), said, "Once rabies develops, the case fatality rate is 100%."

Because once the rabies virus invades the human body, it is clinging to the nerve cells, and the top of the nerve cells is the brain, and the rabies virus will replicate in the nerve cells, and the more and the more, the more and the more, the more and the more, these viral elements will slowly enter the brain. The brain dies and the person dies.

How can I prevent rabies?

We can do without a dog ourselves, but are less likely to leave the house and less likely to stop someone else from getting a dog. It would be quite an accident if you weren't bitten by your own dog.

So Anna mom that article below a lot of fans leave a message that: dog owners please consciously to their own dog vaccination, in the United States and Japan to raise a dog is a must to vaccinate the dog, only so from the source to prevent rabies in the dog can really eliminate rabies.

And not every dog owner in developed countries like ours in China and Africa do get vaccinated against rabies, which is why the World Health Organization mentions that more than 95% of the world's rabies is in Asia and Africa.

What if a dog bites you?

If there is no wound on the body after being licked, there is no relationship, but in case there is a wound on the body or a dog bite that bleeds, rinse it with plenty of soapy water at the first time, and go to the hospital to treat the wound and receive rabies vaccination within 24 hours.

Meanwhile, if the dog that bites is owned by your family, keep the dog under observation for ten days, and if the dog doesn't die within ten days, then rabies can basically be ruled out after ten days, and the rest of the vaccine won't be necessary.

Is rabies only in dogs?

Rabies is most predominantly carried in dogs, and in fact can be carried in cats, rats, and even bats.

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Whenever you hear of rabies, I'm afraid that the words "hopeless, certain death" will appear in your head. 。。。。 And so on these words. Once rabies develops, the mortality rate is almost 100 percent. Why is this rabies so horrible?

Because the rabies virus, it is rooted inside the nerve cells of our body. After entering the body, the virus enters our brain along the central nervous system, and then it uses the brain cells as a base camp to make babies and reproduce, and we all work together to destroy the nerve cells.

We all know that the brain is the commanding officer of our body, for all kinds of instructions of the body, it is through the conduction of nerve cells to complete. Nerve cells are not working, the body is naturally paralyzed, resulting in fear of water and wind, breathing difficulties, incontinence, muscle paralysis, and finally medullary paralysis, respiratory paralysis leading to death.

We cannot pick out and kill all the nerve cells infected with the rabies virus, nor can we take out our own nerves and put them back in after killing the virus. The virus that has already invaded the brain cannot be medically isolated and killed, so in the end, the only way is to face death.

Rabies is not medically conquerable at this time, all we can do is try to keep ourselves away from the risk of rabies and especially protect our children, after all, you only live once and you can never start over.