Rabies, which we know as hydrophobia. Every ten minutes, one person in the world dies due to rabies. In Bangladesh, forty to fifty people and about twenty-five thousand cattle die due to rabies every year. Rabies is a 100% preventable disease. Rabies is an animal-borne viral disease. It is spread through infected dogs, cats, monkeys, foxes, etc. In Bangladesh, rabies is spread through the bite or scratch of an infected dog. It is seen that forty percent of the patients who are infected with rabies are children under the age of fifteen.
If the saliva of an infected animal gets on the wound, rabies can be spread through a bite or scratch. After entering our body, the rabies germs go to the brain through the nerves and cause a serious infection. Usually, its symptoms can appear two to three months after the bite. The main symptoms of rabies include fear or panic at the sight of water. Which we know as hydrophobia. Fear of light or gusts of wind, seizures, excessive salivation, difficulty swallowing food or swallowing, irritability and later paralysis, shortness of breath and death.
Remember that once the symptoms of rabies appear, death is inevitable. The World Health Organization has divided rabies into three categories. Category one: There is no wound or bleeding. Only contact or licking with an infected animal is required. In this case, no vaccination is required. But for awareness or for safety, we say to wash the affected area with soapy water. Category two: In this case, there is a wound but no bleeding. In this case, in addition to washing with soapy water for fifteen minutes, an anti-rabies vaccine injection should be taken. This injection can be given intradermally and intramuscularly into the skin and muscle. Category three: In this case, there is a wound and there is bleeding. This is the most severe category of rabies. In this case, in addition to washing with soapy water for fifteen minutes, an anti-rabies vaccine should be taken. Along with that, rabies immunoglobulin or RIG should also be taken. Although rabies is a viral disease, there is no effective antiviral drug for it. In this case, vaccination is the only way to prevent it.
The rabies vaccines that are available have to be taken in different doses. For example, this vaccine may need to be taken on the zeroth day, the third day, the seventh day, the fourteenth day, the twenty-eighth day and in some cases on the ninetieth day. If you take the rabies vaccine, it is a one hundred percent effective vaccine and through it it is possible to completely prevent rabies. The Bangladesh government provides rabies vaccines completely free of charge at the Upazila Health Complex, Sadar Hospital, Medical College Hospital and the Infectious Diseases Hospital in Dhaka.
