1 week Ago By Ashima Sharda Mahindra
Shenaz Treasury recently had an unpleasant experience at a Mumbai restaurant where a bat fell on her shoulder while she was dining with her friends. As a consequence, the former VJ and travel influencer got a rabies shot as a precaution. “Their scratches and bites look tiny but can cause rabies.
The doctor said I should take the rabies shot as it can be very fatal,” Treasury shared on social media while taking the first jab. “I was sitting in a restaurant, and a bat fell on my shoulder and hair. I pulled it out.
It’s on the table now,” Treasury had previously shared in one of her Instagram stories. What is rabies? Rabies is a viral disease that causes encephalitis in humans and other mammals. Historically referred to as hydrophobia or fear of water because its victims would panic when offered liquids to drink, rabies can be caused by bites, scratches, or even lick of an infected animal – which includes dogs, monkeys, and bats.
Rabies or RABV gets transmitted through direct contact with saliva or brain or nervous system tissue and is fatal but preventable. According to experts, it can spread to people and pets if they are bitten or scratched by a rabid animal. What happens when you get rabies? Doctors say the rabies virus gets into your body when the saliva of an infected animal gets into an open wound.
Even though it moves very slowly along nerves into your central nervous system – which includes your brain and spinal cord, when the rabies virus reaches your brain, the damage causes neurological symptoms. From there, rabies leads to coma and death. There are a few phases of rabies that most people go through these include: Incubation The virus spends anything from days to weeks in your body before it begins to get into your nervous system.
While you may not have any symptoms during this time, if you receive treatment early in the incubation period, you will not get rabies. Prodromal phase The RABV virus travels through your nerve cells into your brain and spinal cord, leading to severe nerve damage as it travels. The prodromal phase begins when the rabies virus enters your nervous system.
While your immune system would try to fight back, nerve damage may cause tingling, pain, or numbness where you were bitten. Acute neurologic phase In this phase, the rabies virus begins to damage your brain and spinal cord leading to severe symptoms like aggression, seizures, and delirium. Paralytic rabies can last up to a month.
Coma This is the final stage of the rabies infection, which eventually leads to death. Signs and symptoms of rabies A few signs and symptoms of the virus in your body include: Fever Tiredness and fatigue Bite wound burning and itching Cough and sore throat Muscle pain Nausea and vomiting DiarrhoeaAgitation and aggression Restlessness Seizures and hallucinations Racing heart Facial paralysis Fear of water or drinking Delirium Neck stiffness Paralysis Coma Death Why is rabies vaccination important? If you get bitten or scratched by an animal suspected to cause rabies, doctors recommend taking the vaccination. Your doctors will give you four shots over 14 days.
If you’ve already been vaccinated before exposure, you will only need two shots. The vaccine teaches your body to destroy the rabies virus before it enters your brain. These shots of the human rabies immune globulin or HRIG give you antibodies - molecules that fight infection - that will destroy the virus near the wound until your body takes over.
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