Can healthy dogs also spread rabies?

Perhaps in most people's impression, healthy dogs will not spread rabies. In fact, this is true. Healthy dogs do not carry viruses in their bodies, and naturally will not bite others and spread rabies to others. However, there is no guarantee that all dogs are healthy, especially stray dogs or dogs in the wild, as well as some animals in the wild, which may carry rabies.

Animals that can spread rabies

Almost all warm-blooded animals are susceptible to rabies virus, but the main susceptible animals are carnivorous and chiropteran mammals. Wild animals are the main hosts of rabies virus. In areas where canine rabies is effectively controlled, bats are also an important host and source of infection of the rabies virus. The host animals currently found in my country include dogs, wolves, foxes, pigs, cats, rats, etc.

Dogs with rabies are the main source of infection. About 95% of rabies patients are bitten by dogs, 4% are bitten by cats, and some are bitten by rats.

Who is more likely to be bitten by animals?

Due to different opportunities of contact with animals, the survey found that 59% of the patients were farmers; 68% were male patients and 32% were female patients; 32% were children ≤14 years old, 58% were 14 to 64 years old, and about 10% were elderly people ≥65 years old. In addition to the frequent contact opportunities being an important reason for the higher proportion of adolescent and child patients, another reason is the lack of awareness of the harmfulness of rabies, resulting in the loss of the best opportunity for prevention and treatment. In addition, although rabies can occur throughout the year, the number of cases in summer and autumn is significantly higher than in other seasons, so more precautions should be taken.

Healthy dogs do not carry rabies virus

Natural infection of various animals with rabies virus will lead to acute and fatal disease. However, studies have found that anti-rabies antibodies can be detected in apparently healthy animals such as leopards, skunks, raccoons, foxes, hyenas, jackals, fruit bats, insectivorous bats, and vampire bats.

Many scholars believe that apparently healthy dogs carry and spread the rabies virus, especially among dogs in high-incidence areas, where the detection rate of rabies virus antigen is 4% to 17.7%. Whether dogs are in a latent period after infection or, like other animals, develop an anti-rabies virus immune response after infection, leading to latent infection, requires further study.

After more than 6 months of observation, we found that healthy dogs do not carry the rabies virus. The report of the World Health Organization's Rabies Expert Committee clearly pointed out that during the treatment of animal bites, if dogs and cats remain healthy after 10 days of observation, the injured person can stop preventive treatment.

The incubation period of rabies varies

Rabies is mainly transmitted through animal bites, when the rabies virus in the saliva enters the body through broken skin, but it can also be transmitted through the digestive tract, respiratory tract or close contact with animals. After a person is infected with the rabies virus, the incubation period is generally 1 to 3 months, with the shortest being only one week and the longest being several years.

The length of the incubation period is related to the site of the animal bite, the severity of the wound, and the amount of virus infected in the wound: the average incubation period for bites on the head and face is 41 days, for bites on the fingers it is 59.42 days, and for bites on the feet it is 187 days. For patients whose incubation period is shorter than 15 days, even if they are vaccinated with rabies vaccine in time, vaccination alone will not provide protection if the wound is not thoroughly cleaned and anti-rabies virus serum is not injected.