What to do if you are bitten by a cat

Cats are very common animals and are women's favorite. However, when raising such animals, some methods and techniques are needed. There are relatively many bacteria in cats' bodies, especially for cats that catch mice. You should pay more attention to this. These cats also need to be vaccinated every day to prevent themselves from suffering from certain diseases. So what should you do if you are bitten by a cat? This is something many people don't understand well.

Many people don’t know what to do if they are bitten by a cat. When this happens, the wound needs to be disinfected to prevent bacteria from invading the body and causing unnecessary harm to your health.

What to do if you are bitten by a cat:

1. Rinse the wound

Once bitten by a cat, it is important to provide on-site first aid. Whenever you are bitten by a cat, whether it is a wild cat, a sick cat, or a normal cat (according to literature reports, a considerable number of normal dogs and cats carry rabies virus in their saliva), do not rush to the hospital to see a doctor. Instead, you should immediately and thoroughly rinse the wound on the spot. If you can't find a water source, you can even use human urine instead of clean water to rinse, and then try to find a water source.

First, it has to be fast. Every second counts and the rabies virus on the wound must be washed away as quickly as possible. Because over time the virus will enter human tissues, invade the central nervous system along the nerves, and kill people.

The second is to be thorough. Since the wounds caused by cat bites are often small on the outside and deep on the inside, this requires that when flushing, the wound should be enlarged as much as possible to allow it to be fully exposed, and the soft tissue around the wound should be squeezed forcefully. In addition, the amount of water used for flushing should be large and the water flow should be fast. It is best to flush with fast water from the tap.

Third, the wound cannot be bandaged. Except for some large wounds that have damaged blood vessels and require bleeding, generally no medication is used and no bandages are required, because rabies virus is anaerobic and will grow rapidly in the absence of oxygen.

If bleeding occurs after being bitten or scratched by a cat, do not rush to stop the bleeding as long as it is not severe. Allow some of the blood to flow out. Pathogens that enter the wound can be carried out through bleeding. If the wound is not large but shallow, you can apply 75% alcohol or 2% iodine and disinfect it 2 to 3 times, and wait for the bleeding to stop naturally. If the wound is deep and covers a large area, rinse the wound repeatedly and thoroughly with sterile saline or 20% soapy water. To prevent rabies, rinse the wound for at least half an hour and then apply 76% alcohol or 2% iodine. After the wound has been rinsed repeatedly, send it to the hospital for further wound flushing treatment (remember to rinse the wound carefully in the hospital), and then get vaccinated against rabies.

2. Rabies vaccination

After being bitten, rabies vaccine should be injected as soon as possible. In principle, it is best to be administered within 24 hours. However, in actual clinical practice, rabies vaccine has a positive preventive effect on people before the potential onset of the disease. The rabies vaccine needs to be administered intramuscularly on days 0 (the day of the first shot), 3, 7, 14, and 28 after exposure. The dosage is 1 ml per person.

If the injury is serious, the doctor will first give you an injection of rabies serum or rabies immunoglobulin (but an allergy test will be done before the injection, and then a course of rabies vaccine will be injected) to give you passive immunity and directly kill the rabies virus that may have infected you. Then, you need to go to the hospital regularly as required to receive rabies vaccine for active immunization, so that the body can produce anti-rabies virus antibodies within about 1 week.

Have you had a tetanus shot? Children who have not had a tetanus shot within 5 years need to be given a tetanus antitoxin injection to prevent possible infection with tetanus bacteria. Then, take amoxicillin antibiotic for about 3 days.

Through the above introduction, you will have a good understanding of what to do if you are bitten by a cat. Therefore, when raising a cat, if such a situation occurs, timely improvement is needed. However, it should be noted that you should not tease the cat too much in normal times, otherwise it will easily cause it to bite you. These are all things to pay attention to.