A. Rabies is an acute infectious disease caused by rabies virus, also known as hydrophobia, mad dog disease, etc.
Rabies is mainly spread among animals. Animals suffering from rabies are commonly known as mad animals, such as mad dogs, mad cats, mad wolves, etc. If a person is bitten or scratched by a rabid animal, he or she will be infected with the rabies virus and may develop rabies. When a person has rabies, he or she will be highly fearful, manic, afraid of water, wind, light and sound, and gradually develop spasms of throat muscles, drooling, paralysis, respiratory and circulatory paralysis, and the death rate is almost 100%.
How do people get infected with rabies virus?
Rabies virus enters the human body through damaged skin or mucous membranes, multiplies internally, enters the nervous system, and spreads to the spinal cord and brain. People die from acute encephalitis and myelitis after getting sick. Rabies virus can also enter the human body through the respiratory and digestive tracts, and there have been reports of rabies infections in foreign countries from inhaling air from caves where bats congregate.
People are infected with rabies virus mainly through the following ways.
1, through wounds or skin mucous membrane infection, such as being bitten by rabid dogs, scratches, slaughtering rabid animals, skinning rabid animals, contact with objects contaminated by rabid animals, anal mucosa, wounds licked by dogs. Some people have been infected with rabies virus by the thorns on the sticks used to fight mad dogs or by the stems of grass.
2, through the oral mucosa infection. There have been people who have been infected by sewing clothes that were bitten by rabid dogs and have died of morbidity caused by biting the thread with their teeth. Eating dog meat and infected with rabies virus caused by morbidity and mortality is also not uncommon.
3, through the patient’s saliva infection. There have been people contaminated with saliva hand wounds and infected with rabies; there are also reports of morbidity caused by wiping eyes and mouth with the patient’s saliva and vomit-contaminated hands.
What measures should be taken after being bitten by rabid dogs or suspected animals?
1. Quickly consult the local Center for Disease Control and Prevention and have the wound treated by a professional physician.
2. Promptly (preferably within a few minutes after the bite) clean and disinfect the wound; use 20% soap and water or 0.1% Neosporin to wash fully for 5-10 minutes, then rinse thoroughly with water. For deeper wounds, use a syringe to infuse deeper into the wound for cleaning to be comprehensive and thorough. Wounds should not be bandaged, sutured, wounds should be exposed as much as possible.
3.Serious bites need to be injected with anti-rabies serum around and at the bottom of the wound, or use rabies immunoglobulin.
4. Inject human rabies vaccine according to the instructions.
4.How to inject rabies vaccine after being bitten?
After a normal person is bitten by a crazy animal or a suspected animal, rabies vaccination is the most important preventive measure. The earlier the injection is given, the better, and the full immunization should be carried out. Injection procedure for general bites: General bites include mild scratches with no bleeding skin and broken skin being licked.
Five injections are required, and one rabies vaccine should be given on day 0 (the first day, i.e., the day of injection), 3 (the fourth day, and so on), 7, 74, and 28 days, with the same dosage injected within the deltoid muscle of the upper arm at the site of vaccination, and children should be injected in the anterior medial thigh area. Gluteal injection is prohibited. Injection procedures for severe bites: Severe bites include one or more bites to the head, face, neck, and fingers, bites through the skin or licking and touching the mucous membranes. These individuals should be doubled and combined with anti-rabies serum or immunoglobulin (40 IU/kg of anti-rabies serum and 20 IU/kg of human anti-rabies immunoglobulin). The first dose of the vaccine should be doubled and booster should be given 15, 75 days or 10, 20, 90 days after the full immunization.
V. What should be noted after vaccination?
After rabies vaccination, you should pay attention to rest, avoid straining or participating in intense sports, and avoid alcohol, strong tea and other stimulating foods. Hormones, immune preparations such as cyclophosphamide and drugs such as chloroquine may reduce the preventive effect of rabies vaccine. Simultaneous use should be avoided as much as possible.
6. Can I get rabies even if I am bitten by a healthy dog?
You will not get rabies from a bite or scratch by a truly healthy dog. However, there are some dogs that look healthy from the outside but actually have rabies virus in their bodies, and if they are bitten or scratched by such dogs, they are at risk of getting rabies. Therefore, once the dog animal bite, scratch, must be timely rabies vaccination to prevent rabies.
Seven, after being bitten by an animal, there is no damage to the skin, do I need to be vaccinated?
After being bitten by an animal, you should not be paralyzed. Sometimes no skin damage can be seen, but in fact tiny tooth marks can mean skin damage that is difficult to perceive with the naked eye. In such cases, rabies virus may invade the body along with the teeth marks. Therefore, clothes should be removed immediately for disinfection, and the skin should be thoroughly washed with soap and water.
VIII. What if I am not vaccinated against rabies in time after being bitten by an animal?
The incubation period of rabies is mostly 30-90 days, and is rarely shorter than 10 days. Generally speaking, those who fail to receive rabies vaccine in time after being bitten or scratched by an animal can still be prevented from developing the disease as long as they are replenished urgently. Because it is difficult to determine in advance whether an injured person will develop the disease or not, and it is also difficult to accurately project the incubation period of the injured person, vaccination should be carried out in accordance with the principles of “early rather than late” and “better to make up for it rather than missing it”.
Can I get rabies vaccine if I have just been vaccinated with other vaccines and bitten by animals?
Generally speaking, if two or more different vaccines are administered at the same time, immune interference will occur. However, if you are bitten or scratched by a dog or cat, rabies prevention becomes a life-or-death matter. Even if you have just received other vaccines, you should give rabies vaccine immediately, in full and in sufficient quantity, and add anti-rabies serum. As for the effect of rabies vaccine on the preventive effect of other vaccines, it can be ignored for the time being.
X. Can rabies be transmitted through the placenta or breast milk?
It has been confirmed that rabies is not transmitted to the fetus through the placenta. This is because rabies virus is a neurotropic virus, which invades the human body, mainly in the brain, spinal cord, saliva and cornea, etc., and is generally not transmitted to the fetus through the placenta. However, rabies can be transmitted to the baby through breast milk. A breastfeeding woman who is bitten by a rabid dog should stop breastfeeding. Rabies virus has been detected in the milk of rabid humans or animals (cattle and horses). Therefore, the fresh milk of rabid animals or cattle and sheep bitten by rabid animals should not be consumed without boiling.
11. Is it right to say that “if you do not develop the disease within 3 months after being bitten by a rabid dog, you will not develop the disease later”?
This statement is not true. The period between the bite of a person by a rabid dog and the onset of the disease is called the incubation period. The length of the incubation period depends on the location of the virus, the extent of the bite, the virulence of the virus, the amount, the age of the infected person, immune status and other conditions. Generally speaking, the incubation period is short for young children and those who bite the head, and relatively long for those who bite the upper and lower extremities or trunk area; in winter, the bite is relatively lighter due to cotton clothing coverage, and the incubation period is longer than in summer. In most cases, the incubation period is 30-90 days, with the shortest being 7-8 days and the longest being more than a year, and the onset of the disease may even occur decades later.
Twelve, the previous preventive injection of rabies vaccine, and now the animal bite after the rabies vaccine should be injected?
The answer is yes, the injection procedure is as follows.
1. If you are bitten again within one year after the full immunization vaccination, you should receive one injection each in 0-3 days, and the third injection can be given on the seventh day for serious exposure.
2.After being bitten again after the full immunization one year ago, the full vaccination is required.
3. If a person is bitten again after a full immunization within three years, a shot can be given on each of the 0-3 days.
XIII. Are there any contraindications to rabies vaccination?
Since rabies is a lethal disease, the vaccination should be administered without contraindications after being bitten by an animal suffering from rabies or when there is a history of other close contacts causing the risk of infection.
XIV. Can pregnant women and infants under the age of one year old be vaccinated against rabies after being bitten by a dog?
The central nervous system and immune function of infants and young children are not sound, and the risk of getting rabies after being bitten by a dog is greater than that of adults. Therefore, if an infant or child is bitten or scratched by a dog, it is important to treat the wound promptly and thoroughly, and to administer the rabies vaccine in full and in sufficient quantity.
Can I switch to the VERO cell/gopher kidney cell rabies vaccine after I have received the rabies vaccine first?
Yes, because the mechanism of action of both vaccines is the same after entering the human body, and they both stimulate the body’s immune system to have an immune recall reaction and rapidly produce specific antibodies to kill rabies virus and play a protective role.
The mortality rate of rabies is almost 100%, and there is no effective treatment yet. Vaccination can only prevent rabies, not cure it. In addition to our attention to the vaccine, it is more critical to clean the wound in a timely manner, repeatedly flush the wound with soapy water to flush the virus away as much as possible, and you can disinfect the wound with common disinfectants such as iodophor and hydrogen peroxide. As long as the wound is not bleeding profusely, do not dress the wound.