rabies

Viral disease of the central nervous system that can afflict all warm-blooded creatures. It is caused by a lyssavirus. It is almost invariably fatal once symptoms have developed. Its transmission to humans is generally by a bite from an infected animal. Rabies continues to kill hundreds of thousands of people every year; almost all these deaths occur in Asia, Africa, and South America.

After an incubation period, which may vary from ten days to more than a year, symptoms of fever, muscle spasm, and delirium develop. As the disease progresses, the mere sight of water is enough to provoke convulsions and paralysis. Death is usual within four or five days from the onset of symptoms. Injections of rabies vaccine and antiserum may save those bitten by a rabid animal from developing the disease. Louis Pasteur was the first to produce a preventive vaccine, and the Pasteur Institute was founded to treat the disease.

As a control measure for foxes and other wild animals, vaccination (by bait) is recommended. In France, Germany, and the border areas of Austria and the Czech Republic, foxes are now vaccinated against rabies with capsules distributed by helicopter; as a result, rabies has been virtually eradicated in Western Europe, and no-one has died of the disease in the European Union since 1973. In 1999 Switzerland became the first country to completely eradicate rabies by vaccinating foxes in this way.

Rabies in wild animals is common across the USA (except Hawaii). In 2001, there were 7,440 cases in animals, but only one case in a human victim.

According to the European Commission, the number of cases of rabies in animals in EU member states was reduced by 70% between 1990 and 1994. In 1996 the Commission also began examining ways of controlling rabies in bats, which were identified as possible carriers in the early 1990s.