In some ways, the approach to rabies vaccine is easy. In other ways, it’s complicated. To some degree, the medicine is easy, but other considerations (like regulatory requirements) cloud the picture.
The medicine:
Rabies vaccines are highly effective. A single initial dose provides at least 1 year of protection. The first dose is supposed
While the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated controversies continue to dominate our collective attention, much older, more familiar diseases are still out there too, causing their old familiar – and deadly – problems. Rabies has once again reared its snarling head, this time in the small Arctic coastal community of Tuktoyaktuk, NWT. Rabies is
A few times a week, I get questions like this from veterinarians:
Or I get
Rabies is a disease that’s met with an interesting mix of inherent fear and dismissiveness in most developed countries, where canine rabies has been eradicated. It’s also a disease that’s often poorly understood in areas where it causes large numbers of deaths. As an almost completely preventable disease (with proper post-exposure treatment), and one for
Lots of things you can get at a convenience store aren’t great for your health, but I wouldn’t have thought we’d have to add rabies to the list of concerns.
Public health officials in Niagara Falls, NY, are trying to track down nine baby raccoons that were handed out by someone outside a 7-Eleven store
I’ll hold back and just classify this as “not a great idea.”
How do that many people get exposed to a single raccoon?
Step 1: Take a wild raccoon and try to make it
It wasn’t a snake and Samuel L. Jackson (presumably) wasn’t there to save the day, but Spirit Airlines passengers on a recent flight had to deal with an unwanted stowaway. During a flight from Charlotte to Newark, a bat started flying around the cabin of the Spirit Airlines aircraft. It likely flew into the
Since the recently reported case of rabies in a man from BC, Canada, I’ve done a lot of interviews. One thing that has struck me is the continued misconception about what rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is, and the perception that it’s a long, painful ordeal.
It isn’t (at least not anymore)… and I know
Rabies is a high-profile disease and human rabies is exceptionally rare in Canada. While rabies is relatively widespread in wildlife in North America, it’s is rare in domestic animals in Canada, and spillover into people is fortunately rarer still because people have less direct contact with wildlife reservoirs, and because post-exposure prophylaxis is so effective
I’ve been slow to write about this (and other things lately… busy/lazy) but a rabid feral cat found in the vicinity of Disney’s Epcot Center in Orlando, FL has attracted a lot of attention. The Department of Health in Orange County has issued a 60 day alert for a two mile radius around where the
