Luckily odds of actually getting it seem pretty low overall given the CDC increase referencing 3 deaths as an increase. But still, one of those terrifying ways to go.
On a positive note, the act of being alive is also a ticking time bomb that inevitably leads to death as well, so there is that!
>> Only x number of people have died in the U.S. in the past x years. Rabies is really rare.
> Yes, deaths from rabies are rare in the United States, in the neighborhood of 2-3 per year. This does not mean rabies is rare. The reason that mortality is so rare in the U.S. is due to a very aggressive treatment protocol of all bite cases in the United States: If you are bitten, and you cannot identify the animal that bit you, or the animal were to die shortly after biting you, you will get post exposure treatment. That is the protocol.
> Post exposure is very effective (almost 100%) if done before you become symptomatic. It involves a series of immunoglobulin shots - many of which are at the site of the bite - as well as the vaccine given over the span of a month. (Fun fact - if you're vaccinated for rabies, you may be able to be an immunoglobulin donor!)
> In countries without good treatment protocols rabies is rampant. India alone sees 20,000 deaths from rabies PER YEAR.
Those shots are not cheap either. We found a bat had been in our bedroom at night when we visited my in laws and I saw it fly over us several times.
They didn’t catch it so we didn’t know if the bat had rabies. We hadn’t been bitten, but you can get the virus dropped in your eyes or nose and it is basically 100% fatal.
With those odds, you go through the 3 shot protocol. It was basically $1k per shot for each of us. We have solid insurance but they were not covered because they are so rare.
That sounds ridiculously cheap. I got bitten by the squirrel and went to the emergency room only to be told that they don’t do rabies shots after squirrel bites. The price I paid for 15 min visit? - $3,500.
To what end then is it useful to drum up public fear of rabies in bats, if what actually leads to deaths seems to be economical problems? People only react stupidly to fear mongering. If you want a delightful read, the Merlin Tuttle Bat Conservancy has collected stories about how Fauchi's baseless, "idk, probably bats" reasoning has led to the extermination of entire populations. https://www.merlintuttle.org/
If you truly must live your life in fear of dying, look no further than heart disease and car accidents.
If you truly must live your life in fear of dying, look no further than heart disease and car accidents.
Those are not as scary because there are plenty of survivors, in various states of health. Rabies is notable for being a very binary and decisive disease with little advance warning or treatment.
I think, some creatures are just trouble for our species. Mosquitoes are the deadliest for us, but it seems that bats, with high instances of rabies, and things like covid, are right up there too.
It is sadly funny that we manage to extinct the useful, and mostly beneficial creatures around us, but our "enemies" just exist rampantly and laugh.
Unfun fact: the rabies immune globulin shots are by far the most painful shot I've ever experienced and being the size that I am, I received what I think was 7 of them in quick succession.
I also got the 4-shot vaccine series, which felt like any other vaccine (basically painless), but the RIG was like having liquid fire injected into my Forrest Gump region.
Huh. I had immunoglobulin shots ("It's just like maple syrup!" the nurse told me) in my butt back in college, and I don't remember it hurting at all. It was just an odd sensation of so much heavy fluid being injected so slowly.
Mostly, I remember it being funny every time I went back and presented my bare butt to the nurse.
I got bit on my finger tip by a feral cat and had to get the first dose injection in the fingertip. It was not pleasant. The rest of them were in the butt which was not great but nothing compared to the fingertip. The cat did die and my parents were able to send it in and luckily the tests for the cat came back negative after a couple of days and I did not have to get all the doses.
Weird. I had the immunoglobulin shots, two in the legs, two in buttocks. Despite the syringes being larger than ones I usually see for vaccine it was nothing too memorable. The intramuscular shots (J&J for covid and Tdap honestly hurt more). The ~$17k bill the hospital sent me was the most painful part of the rabies post-exposure process to deal with, not any of the shots.
I had immunoglobulin + rabies vax in my arms and butt and it was just a standard vaccination kind of discomfort. I don't remember thinking "omg pain" at all.
You can, especially if traveling to a region where it’s endemic and common. I got the series at a Kaiser travel clinic just by asking when I was planning out a long international trip. You still need post-exposure shots, though fewer (and maybe no immune globulin, if I remember correctly).
The rabies vaccine needs fairly frequent renewal (more than once a year). People likely to contract it (vets, pest control, zookeepers, etc) get them. Others get post exposure treatment that is very effective.
People who work with bats or are otherwise at risk of coming in contact with rabies are actually getting the vaccination like they get others (note: in Germany).
I bet you could make a lot of money advertizing an elective rabies vaccine to people searching for rabies on YouTube. They might not ultimately need it, but if they're willing to pony up some money for peace of mind, why not?
As mentioned in the previous comment,its less because the odds are low and more becuase the US treats basically every animal bite as a rabies case. It takes a very extreme containment method to achieve low deaths
The sole caveat to this is the Milwaukee Protocol, which leaves most patients dead anyway, and the survivors mentally disabled, and is seldom done - see below
I was curious, and thought that would be something gruesome involving power tools, so I looked it up and it's apparently an induced coma with heavy doses of antiviral drugs, which has a very low success rate.
less scary than prion diseases like mad cow... imagine eating a burger ten years ago and dying from it. there was a notable case recently where a woman in a lab accidentally pricked her finger a long time ago and died from it. I believe it was in france. thankfully it is fairly rare.
Prions are doubly terrifying because it's not a typical disease. From what I understand it's proteins folding in a different way that come into (the prions can be dead or alive) and the healthy proteins will take on the new form. It's scary because typical sterilization (high heat) for surgery does not work guarantee it and the heat required is not currently practical.
The shakes from that cannibals get are prions. I also though I saw a link to a subset of alzehimer cases but can't find it.
"...in 1985 when the Colorado Division of Wildlife tried to eliminate CWD from a research facility by treating the soil with chlorine, removing the treated soil, and applying an additional chlorine treatment before letting the facility remain vacant for more than a year, they were unsuccessful in eliminating CWD from the facility."
There seems to be some kind of species barrier making it difficult for deer prions to infect humans, because people are certainly being exposed to it frequently, especially in areas like the midwest where CWD is rampant. But we're in deep trouble if that ever changes. Imagine people dying of CJD because deer peed in a field somewhere decades ago, the prions bound to the soil, then bound to a seed planted in the soil, then you ate whatever crop happened to be grown there. It'd be inescapable.
Imagine developing untreatable cancer and dying next year. Much more likely than either prion disease or rabies. You can't go through life afraid of "what if" we are all dead in the end anyway.
