Rabies is considered the most dangerous disease in all warm-blooded animals. Wild or domestic, living permanently in an apartment or in the wild - no one is immune from this virus.
When having a cat, many owners ignore the annual vaccination. Some people think that a disease such as rabies is anywhere but near them.
Methods of transmission and infection
Leaving your own entrance, you can see mice or rats near many houses, which take root near garbage chutes. It is they who are considered the carriers of rabies closest to humans. Street cats that hunted these rodents, in a fight with them, could get a bite, and this disease is transmitted through it.
Rabies is transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal. The latent period of the disease, before the first obvious signs of rabies, can be from 2 weeks to six months. It all depends on the location of the bite site in relation to the brain, since, getting into the blood, the virus penetrates the nerve fibers. If the bite was in the head or neck area, then the symptoms will develop earlier than the bite in the hind paw.
By eating a virus carrier, the cat also becomes infected with rabies. The next method of transmission is through saliva on damaged skin. Various microtrauma in cats and scratching of the skin can become an entrance route for infection.
Carriers of rabies are: rodents, cats, ferrets, bats, dogs, foxes, raccoons, wolves, hedgehogs.
In sick animals, the instinct of self-preservation is dulled. Wild animals can approach people, flatter, take food from their hands. At the same time, their behavior changes dramatically to aggressive. They begin to throw themselves, growl, gnaw and swallow stones and sticks. They develop hydrophobia and photophobia.
Prevention and protection
The only way to prevent rabies is to get vaccinated annually. Since rabies is a dangerous disease that can be transmitted to humans, vaccinations for animals are free of charge. You can do it by contacting the regional or city veterinary clinic.
If you have been bitten by a wild or stray animal, then you should urgently go to the emergency room or veterinary laboratory, where they will inject the medicine with a repeat 3 times, protecting you from rabies. Do not be negligent about your health. After all, this disease is not treated either in animals or in humans.
Veterinary medicine around the world protects human health and fights this disease. There is a specialized site where you can see outbreaks of rabies on the world map. Information on outbreaks of this disease around the world is updated weekly.
