Introduction On Rabies

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country & what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me – Louise Pasteur (founder of antirabies vaccine).

1.1 An Overview of Rabies

Rabies, an ancient disease mentioned in the Vedas and other ancient scripts. Rabies is a viral disease which causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals (APCRI, 2006). It means “furious” in Latin and commonly identified throughout the ages for its terrifying effects on both animals and humans in the same way. Rabies comes from the Latin word Rabere means to “rage or rave”. This Latin word rabere may have obtained from Sanskrit word rabhas which means “to do violence” (Singh et al., 1993; Panikar

Annually 17.4 million animal bites are reported. India accounts for 56% of the Asian and 36% of the Global human rabies deaths. In India rabies is reported from all states except the Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep. No sex or age predilections but higher incidence of animal bites and rabies deaths among children and adult males. Due to bites from rabid dogs 96 % of human rabies cases are founded (APCRI, 2009). Rabies has been reported to take 60,000 lives annually Worldwide. About 84 % of total mortality contributes rural population. Rabies is globally responsible for the total loss of 1.74 million disability adjusted year (DALY) each year according to Statistical data projects. An additional 0.04 million are lost annually through morbidity and mortality following side-effects of nerve tissue vaccine, and trauma induced by suspected rabid dog and psychological impacts of fear. 1, 39,893 amounts the psychological burden of rabies in

First stages of rabies disease started from the incubation period which is the period between infection and the first flu-like symptoms is typically 2 to 12 weeks. Incubation periods as short as four days and as long as six years have been documented, depending on the location and severity of the inoculating wound and the amount of virus introduced in the body. Symptoms may soon expand to abnormal behavior, slight paralysis, agitation, paranoia, terror, hallucinations, anxiety, insomnia, confusion and progressing to delirium (Cotran et al., 2005; Schoenstadt, 2008). Death almost invariably results 2 to 10 days after first symptom of disease. Survival is rare once symptoms have presented, even with the administration of proper and intensive care (Rupprecht et al.,