Symptoms before rabies attack

Rabies has an incubation period, and some uncomfortable symptoms will appear in the early stages. As long as everyone can observe in time, you may have been bitten only a few months ago before a rabies attack, but this is something that everyone often forgets. One to four days before an attack, there will be persistent symptoms of fever, physical discomfort, nausea and vomiting.

Rabies is caused by the rabies virus. Humans can also be infected by being bitten by rabid dogs. Other warm-blooded animals infected with the disease, such as cats, wolves, and foxes, can also spread the disease.

Its characteristic symptom is hydrophobia, that is, when drinking water, the patient will experience spasm of the swallowing muscles and be unable to swallow the water. Subsequently, the patient will be extremely thirsty but dare not drink water, so it is also called hydrophobia. Data shows that rabies has visited more than 100 countries in the world and claimed the lives of tens of millions of people.

Most cases of rabies in humans are caused by bites (scratches) from animals carrying the rabies virus. The incubation period can be as short as 10 days or as long as 2 years or longer, generally 31 to 60 days, and 15% occurs after 3 months, depending on the distance of the bite site from the central nervous system, the severity of the bite, or the dose of the infectious virus. The mortality rate of rabies is extremely high. Once the disease occurs, almost all patients die. There are only a few reports of survival cases in the world. However, if preventive injections are given promptly after being bitten by a rabid dog, the disease can almost always be avoided. Therefore, it is very important to vigorously popularize rabies knowledge so that those who are bitten can receive vaccination at an early stage. Rabies is prevalent throughout the world and still occurs occasionally in China. Because this disease also exists in wild animals, it is very difficult to completely eradicate it, but the incidence rate can be greatly reduced if domestic dogs are managed well.

Rabies often has a short prodromal period of about 1 to 4 days, characterized by moderate fever, malaise, loss of appetite, headache, nausea, etc.; it then enters the neurological symptom period of about 2 to 20 days, characterized by increased irritability, chest pressure, chest pain and air phobia, where wind blowing on the face can cause spasm of the throat muscles. This is a typical symptom that helps with diagnosis. There is pain or various strange sensations at the wound site. Some patients have increased irritability to light, noise and sensory stimulation, usually manifested by increased muscle tone and facial muscle spasms. After the sympathetic nervous system is damaged, excessive sweating, salivation, manic behavior, anxiety, spasmodic painful muscle contractions will appear. When swallowing, the muscles in the throat and other parts of the body will spasm and people will be afraid of drinking water. Therefore, it is also called hydrophobia.

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