this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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If you ever get a bite from a animal please get a rabies jab. Stray dog get a jab, bat hell yeah get a shot, dog tied done at the grocery store get a shot.
Rabies is seriously deathly.
One of the deadliest diseases of all time, possibly the deadliest disease according to some metrics. Even exhibiting symptoms is a death sentence.
But also more importantly completely preventable with a rabies vaccine with prompt action.
Sponsored by Michael Scott
Myth: 3 people die every year to rabies.
Fact: 4 people die every year to rabies.
It has a lengthy, almost month-long inoculation period where you can be vaccinated. Should you show symptoms after that, you're fucked
Mouse bit me on my wedding night last month. My dumbass snatched him out of a trash can instead of just dumping. I may have had a few drinks. Didn't get a whole drop of blood out of me, but he got under the skin.
Next day, I'm seriously sweating it. OK, time to do a little research. Rabies reports around here are astonishingly rare, especially given the nature of the area. 1 in my county for all of 2023 so far. Still...
Found out that not only is rabies crazy rare in rats, mice and lagomorphs, there are no known instances of transmission to a human. I had no idea!
Rabies aren't the only diseases wild mice can carry. Definitely get yourself checked out next time!
My neighbor was a maintenance man at an apartment complex and was bitten while emptying mouse traps. He was infected with a virus that caused some kind of lymphatic disease that developed into viral meningitis. He wound up spending months in hospitals and rehab and has permanent brain damage and disability. It was treatable if he had gone to the Dr earlier but healthcare is expensive and hard to access so he decided to wait and see if it'd pass.
Ditto for all animals. A guy from out of town was here for work one time and he tried to pet a cute stray cat he saw hanging out next door. I ended up being the designated local chaperone to take him and his dumb purple sausage finger to the hospital at 2 AM that night.
Mice have been known to spread plague even in recent times, for example. Fortunately, it's treatable with antibiotics.
Uh, that's from their fleas, not bites. FFS, did no one else get through high school history? Or has education fallen this far off?
You can get Hantavirus from their dried urine, saliva, and feces though
That's kind of a "no duh" statement. Everybody knows fleas transmit it. The point is that it's still around.
For American's, isn't it more of a SW desert thing? Hantavirus and such?
LOL, and a post below here is acting like, "Sorry, can't be bothered to remember." The various plagues were kinda important in history, don't think many teachers are skipping over that bit.
I was actually thinking of Oregon. When I lived there a few years back, there were a couple of cases of people who came down with plague after handling wild mice (because of the fleas, obviously, but that should be able to go without saying).
Hantivirus, to my knowledge, can happen anywhere but is more prevalent in the American west, including southwest.
I thought it was the beams from the eyes of sick people that spread it?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory_(vision)
Oh no, we're all just more concerned about affording to survive, and can't be bothered to remember a detail about a disease from hundreds of years ago that is no longer a threat whatsoever.
What do you mean checked out? The only checking out you can get for a rat bite is wound care and a rabies shot. Sometimes antibiotics depending on the wound (not because rat, but because bite).
I mean that's the thing though, that rabies shot and antibiotics is a hell of a lot better than doing nothing, and if you do end up infected, improve your outlook a shit ton.
The UK is officially free from terrestrial rabies.
Which when you look into it more, means "The UK has rabid bats". Hopefully not Seagulls or Pigeons, or we're all screwed.
There was a case of a rabid fox coming through the channel tunnel. Caught though.
It's unfortunate that the shot series can run you $50k in the US if you don't have insurance or your insurance is run by assholes.
One person needed the shot and was told they had 10 days initially so were not super worried. They were then told by the heath department they actually only had three days to do it. The health department referred them to a hospital. The hospital said since it happened where it did, they would need to go to a different hospital. That hospital did not have the shot. The initial hospital was reluctant to provide it because it was expensive but eventually caved and gave it to them.
I agree: get the shot. But don't expect it to necessarily be easy.
I'm glad it's free where I live, and my googling of that question also suggests it wouldn't be hard for me to find.
Australia is totally rabies-free so I didn't know rabies even existed until I moved to the USA.