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Originally Posted by mynah
You'll find most of what you want to know - well, perhaps more than you'd like to know - about rabies in this online book.
Two interesting facts about immunity to rabies:
Whereas early and appropriate treatment after exposure almost always always prevent rabies from developing in humans, such treatment is ineffective in dogs. (This is not to be confused with vaccination in animals, which is generally effective.) |
I will read the book later today if time permits.
I would like to say that because a treatment used on people does not work on dogs does not bear relation to whether or not a human is at equal risk for developing rabies without treatment. We develop treatments for canine diseases which do not work on similar humans diseases also. Lots of promising clinical trials on people have failed when they were successful on dogs (and other lab animals).
Quote:
Originally Posted by mynah
It would seem that the human immune system does react to rabies exposure, and sometimes overcomes the virus. A fur trapper who had killed thousands of foxes in a rabies endemic area, for example, was found to have antibodies against the virus in his blood, even though he had never been vaccinated against rabies or received treatment after being bitten.
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Yes, and when spanish flu raged around the world not everyone exposed developed the disease. That is a immune system genetic difference that is apparent in most (if not all) diseases which rage through a population, whether human or animal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mynah
If a severe strain of a virus that previously did not infect people it all begins to do so, one should take notice. If it begins to get spread directly from person to person, it is an indication that the outbreak may be progressing to phase 5 (Phase 5: More generalised outbreaks are seen, but transmission between humans is still limited. Indications are that the virus is still not readily transmissible between humans, but that it is becoming so. The risk of a pandemic is now significant.) Phase 6 is the pandemic itself. Though the incidence of H5N1 avian flu has decreased, it has not gone away - and the disease caused by it remains severe.
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Except that H5N1 human exposures typically do not cause the disease in humans. As I have said, the risk of developing this particular disease is primarily due to the handling of infected animals, rather than simple exposure such as with a typical human flu. I have participated in the butcher of animals and the cleaning of their pens. It was very important that I not do certain things, such as being very careful while making cuts to not cut myself, exactly so I did not expose myself to a disease that animal may harbor which would not normally affect a human unless you did something to expose yourself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mynah
As AIDS did? Remember, in these days of global travel, a new disease may just be a plane flight away... Here in South Africa, we are bearing the consequences of a government ignoring a new killer disease because acknowledging it happened to be politically inconvenient. As a consequence, average life expectancy is now down to 42 years.
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AIDs discussion should probably have its own thread. As far as just a plane flight away, while true, we do have the example of SARs which never turned into the global pandemic, yet still exists out there in the real world. If I remember right, less than 9,000 deaths since its beginning.
Gotta go birding now.
