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Do you remember there was a time when rabies was really common, we heard about it consistently and it was something to get scared of, but while most of us were very familiar with the **Rabies Disease**, we didn't know what the underlying cause was, and certainly most of us didn't even care to know. However, I believe it is good for us to always know the cause of a disease, and know how appropriately stay away from this destructive disease.

<center>https://cdn2.picryl.com/photo/1958/12/31/manwithrabies-3a2b87-1024.png
[Image credit](https://picryl.com/media/manwithrabies-3a2b87)</center></div>

Why do I say Rabies is a destructive disease? I say so because it has accounted to cause the death of over 59,000 humans on an annual base, it is a fatal encephalitic disease. Lyssa-viruses are the cause of rabies disease, and the most prevalent of lyssavirus's prototype species is rabies lyssavirus. 

Typically, rabies can be transmitted through the injection of virus-laden saliva coming from the bite or the scratch of an infected animal. As a result of the inhibition of specific immune responses through a multi-functional viral protein, the virus would easily get replicated at a low level in the muscle tissue and subsequently enters into the peripheral nervous system at the neuromuscular junction. 

It is believed that all mammals are susceptible to rabies virus infection, even though the disease has a highest case fatality and an excessive burden in comparison to other major zoonoses, rabies remains a neglected case, the moment the illness begins to show, there is often to available treatment remedy that could prevent death. 

Although, we have vaccines that were developed over a century ago, however, a clear majority of human cases remain unvaccinated.
Some of us would have probably thought we should no longer have to fear the existence of rabies, but just before you make that decision, permit me to give you a list of people who need to be worried or scared about the disease.

We have those who have been afflicted, animal lovers, administrators, anthropologists, educators, cavers, farmers, environmentalists, travelers, medical professionals, health economists, travelers, humanists, hikers, historians, philanthropists, legislators, modelers, life scientists students, sociologist, conservation biologist, looking through this list, if you are free and safe, do you think your friends and family members are completely safe too? It could be a lot to handle sometimes.

Rabies is an RNA virus, the genome encodes 5 proteins that are designated as N, P, M, G, and L.  While all species of mammals can probably contract rabies, it is only a limited number of them that could act as reservoir hosts. Those who act as reservoir hosts are most often members of the Canidae family which includes wolves, foxes, dogs, jackals, raccoon dogs, and the likes, the Mustelida, the Viverridae, Procyonidae, and the order Chiroptera (bats).
The incubation period of rabies in animals usually would take from 2-3 weeks to 3 months, sometimes, it lasts for as long as 6 months and even longer in some rare cases.

The clinical course of rabies would run for a few days to about a week, though cases of sudden death have also been seen. The initial signs of the illness could be vague, inconsistent, and maybe subtle with fever and other nonspecific signs like an increased appetite, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration, excessive salivation, restlessness, fear, and unusual aggressiveness. 

The manifestation of rabies is in two forms; we have the paralytic and encephalitic forms. The encephalitic form of rabies is more common, and it exists in about 80% of the cases we see, Encephalitic rabies would often progress to a point of severe flaccid paralysis, coma and death caused as a result of multiple organ failure, while paralytic rabies manifests with prominent muscle weakness at the early course of the illness.


The period of survival in patients who have paralytic rabies is approximately 41% longer than in patients who have encephalitic rabies. Regardless, the incubation periods for both forms are similar, it ranges from 2 weeks to several months, but some exceptional cases have been reported to last for as long as a year or even 8 years.

Rabies is very fatal from the moment clinical signs begin to show, and there is only a very rare number of survivors that have been seen after they have shown clinical manifestation. However, exposure would not always lead to clinical signs, most of the patients who were able to recover well only had a few residual neurological signs, with little or no cognitive impairment, were young, and were in good health. 

The survival mechanism was found to be correlated with the early development of antibodies, this alone does not guarantee recovery without sequelae, other factors could guarantee other factors, an example is the origin and the type of the virus involved.

#### <center>References.</center>

[cfsph.iastate.edu](https://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factsheets/pdfs/rabies.pdf)

[ncbi.nlm.nih.gov](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8678592/)

[cdc.gov/rabies](https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/about.html)

[nih.gov/pmc/articles](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5325067/)