Recently something amazing has happened – rabies is being picked up in American children without any real warning. Why? Perhaps because we are so used to being safe and well used to it, we don’t know when our babies bite animals. worry about him a lot.
In India, a ten-year-old girl died after 26 days of being bitten by a rabid bat; the mother had forgotten that she had been struck. A boy of eleven years died in California; His parents and doctors believe he contracted rabies in the Philippines two years ago when a dog bit him.
Even in later times fatal rabies is not necessary. In 2004, a new experimental treatment called the Wisconsin Protocol, involving putting patients in an induced coma and delivering large doses of antiviral drugs, saved the life of a fifteen-year-old with advanced rabies. Although doctors did not identify the source of the illness for almost a week, ribavirin was used to save his life. She was the first rabies patient whose life was saved by this treatment, and only the sixth in human memory who recovered from rabies symptoms after an attack.
The Wisconsin Protocol may save more lives in the future. But even if the children’s lives are not affected, it is critical that the disease be recognized as soon as possible. This means that clinicians and parents know what to look for.
Indicators of Rabies
Animal Bites: Rabies is always transmitted by direct blood contact with an infected person or creature, and almost always means a bite. The most common animal bites in the US that carry rabies are raccoons, bats, and dogs; in a couple of rare cases, rabies has also been spread from person to person via organ transplant, but this is generally unheard of. There will likely be pain and a heightened sensation at the site of the bite.
Brain inflammation: After an incubation period of ten days to seven years, the virus creates swelling in the brain, which triggers all the other symptoms of the disease. In most cases, the incubation period will be three to seven weeks.
Symptoms secondary to inflammation of the brain include: low fever, difficulty swallowing which results in spasms of the throat (this makes the water especially hard swallowing, which is why it is also called rabies hydrophobia), restlessness, excitability, muscular nerves and convulsions, numbness, tingling, loss of muscle function or sensation in the whole body region, depression, anxiety and stress.
According to the secondary standards of the time show, it is likely that the only possible treatment is the Wisconsin protocol, which is still relatively proven. For this reason, it is important for the victim to seek treatment as soon as possible after an animal bite.
Early modern treatment rabies consisted of a series of vaccinations in the arm (not the stomach, as was the norm). The side effect can be moderately severe, but not permanent; they usually make sick recipients. This immunization, given within two days, almost always prevents rabies. After secondary symptoms appear, hardly anyone survives more than seven days.
