Treatment
Someone who has been bitten by an unknown animal should always be treated without waiting for symptoms, given the potentially fatal consequences of a rabid biter: there have been very few cases of someone surviving rabies when treatment was not begun until after symptoms appeared. Depending on local laws, dogs that are showing neurological signs at the time of the bite are euthanized in order to have their brain tested for rabies. Unvaccinated healthy dogs need to be confined for ten days from the time of the bite (at home or at a veterinarian depending on local law). If the dog is not showing signs of rabies at the end of ten days, then the bitten person could not have been exposed to rabies. Dogs, cats, and ferrets can have the rabies virus in their saliva several days before showing symptoms. Ten day confinement does not apply to other species. A dog or cat bitten by a wild animal in an area known to have rabies should be confined for six months, because it can take that long for symptoms to start. This is an incentive to dog-owners to vaccinate their dogs even if they feel the risk of their dog contracting rabies is low, since vaccination will eliminate the need for their dog to be euthanized or impounded should it bite anyone or be suspected of biting anyone.
Read more about this topic: Rabies In Animals
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“To me, nothing can be more important than giving children books, It’s better to be giving books to children than drug treatment to them when they’re 15 years old. Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn’t have to put them in prisons?”
—Fran Lebowitz (20th century)