Rabies is a viral disease affecting the central nervous system. It is transmitted from infected mammals to man and is invariably fatal once symptoms appear. Fortunately, only a few cases are reported each year in the United States.

All warm blooded mammals including man are susceptible to rabies.

Rabies is almost always contracted by exposure to a rabid animal. The exposure is usually through a bite, but scratches and saliva contact with broken skin are also possible routes.

Early symptoms include irritability, headache, fever, and sometimes itching or pain at the site of exposure. The disease eventually progresses to paralysis, spasms of the throat muscles, convulsions, delirium, and death.

The incubation period is variable but is normally two to eight weeks. Incubation periods of over one year have been reported.

Person to person transmission is extremely rare, however, precautions should be taken to prevent exposure to the saliva of the diseased person.

Treatment requires prompt scrubbing of the bite site, followed by the administration of rabies immune globulin (dosage dependent on weight) and five doses of human diploid cell rabies vaccine administered in the arm on days 0, 3, 7, 14, and 28 days after exposure.

Exposure of man to a rabid animal does not always result in rabies. If preventive treatment is obtained promptly following a rabies exposure, most cases of rabies will be prevented. Untreated cases will invariably result in death.

Exposure to rabies may be minimized by removing all stray dogs and cats, having all pets vaccinated and staying away from all wild animals, especially those acting abnormally. To control the spread of rabies in wild animals such as raccoons, the New York State Department of Health has recently been distributing a form of bait containing rabies vaccine in wooded areas to immunize the animals.