Rabies (Latin: rabies, "madness, rage,fury") is a preventable viral zoonotic neuroinvasive
disease most often transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal that causes acute encephalitis
(inflammation of the brain) in mammals. In non-vaccinated humans,rabies is almost invariably
fatal after neurological symptoms have developed. It infects the central nervous system,
causing
encephalopathy and ultimately death, but prompt post-exposure vaccination may prevent the
virus
from progressing. Each year, it kills more than 50,000 people and millions of animals around the
world.
There are only six known cases of a person surviving symptomatic rabies, and only one known
case of
survival in which the patient received no rabies-specific treatment either before or after
illness onset.
Over the last 100 years, rabies in the
United States has changed dramatically. More than 90% of all animal
cases reported annually to CDC now
occur in wildlife; before 1960 the majority were in domestic animals.
The principal rabies hosts today
are wild carnivores and bats..The number of rabies-related human deaths
in the United States has
declined from more than 100 annually at the turn of the century to one or two
per year in the1990's.
Modern day prophylaxis has proven nearly 100% successful. In the United States,
human fatalities
associated with rabies occur in people who fail to seek medical assistance, usually because
they were
unaware of their exposure.
