Do rabbits have rabies?

If many creatures wander around for a long time, most of them will carry rabies. Many people are accidentally bitten when catching rabbits. After being bitten, everyone will be very worried about getting rabies, because rabies has a latent period and it cannot be detected during this period. Once an attack occurs, it is difficult to treat. Rabbits may carry rabies. In addition to rabbits, many other animals may carry rabies.

Rabbits can be infected with rabies. In fact, almost all warm-blooded animals can be infected with the rabies virus. In addition to dogs, badgers, wolves, foxes, bats, raccoons, monkeys, mice, rabbits, cats, cows, pigs and other animals can carry the rabies virus.

But you don't have to worry. Animals with rabies will not live long, and most people infected with rabies will develop the disease within 90 days. Now it's been half a year, so it's okay. However, since we keep pets, injuries are inevitable. From a preventive perspective, both humans and animals can be vaccinated against rabies.

Symptoms and signs

The varying length of the incubation period is one of the characteristics of this disease. Most cases occur within 3 months, 4% to 10% occur more than half a year, and about 1% occur more than 1 year. The longest case recorded in the literature was 10 years. Factors that affect the length of the incubation period include age (shorter in children), wound location (head and face are more susceptible to the disease earlier), wound depth (deeper wounds are more susceptible to the disease earlier), the number of viral invasions and the virulence of the strain, whether formal wound expansion treatment and rabies vaccination were performed after the injury, etc. Other factors such as trauma, cold, and excessive fatigue may also lead to premature onset of the disease. [1]

Clinical manifestations can be divided into two types: manic type (encephalitis type) and paralytic type (quiet type), which are divided into the following three stages:

1. Prodromal phase The prodromal phase of both types is similar. Before the excited state appears, most patients have low fever, drowsiness, lack of appetite, and a few have nausea, vomiting, headache (mostly in the occipital region), back pain, general discomfort, etc.; they begin to be sensitive to stimuli such as pain, sound, light, and wind, and have a tightening feeling in the throat. Early symptoms with great diagnostic significance are numbness, itching, tingling, or abnormal sensations such as crawling insects and ants in the healed wound site and nerve pathways, which occur in about 80% of cases. This is caused by viral reproduction stimulating neurons, especially sensory neurons, and the symptoms can last from hours to days. This phase lasts 1 to 2 days and rarely exceeds 4 days.

2. Excitement phase or spasm phase can be divided into two types, and the manifestations of the two types are different.

(1) Manic rabies: the most common type in China, accounting for about 2/3 abroad. The patient gradually enters a state of high excitement, with prominent manifestations of extreme terror and a sense of foreboding of impending disaster. He is also very sensitive to stimuli such as the sound of water, light, and wind, causing paroxysmal pharyngeal muscle spasms, difficulty breathing, etc.

Hydrophobia is a specific symptom of this disease, but it may not occur in every case and does not necessarily appear in the early stages. Typically, drinking water, seeing water, hearing the sound of running water, or just mentioning drinking water can cause severe spasm of the pharyngeal muscles. Therefore, the patient is extremely thirsty but dares not drink, and even if he wants to drink, he cannot swallow it. His mouth is full of drool, which stains the bed or spit everywhere. Due to vocal cord spasm, the patient may have unclear pronunciation, hoarse voice, or even loss of voice.