Recently, a news titled "A 9-year-old boy died of rabies due to being licked by a dog" has become a hot search and attracted the attention of many people.
Network news screenshot
content shows that in May-June 2018, the boy was scratched by a puppy. On December 30, 2018, the child was licked by a dog while playing. He did not tell the parents in time when he was exposed, and did not go to the disease control department to deal with it in time. On February 7, 2019, the child gradually developed symptoms such as fear of wind, water, light, and sound. On February 10, the symptoms worsened and numbness of both upper limbs, accompanied by mania, excitement, and spasm of the limbs, and was diagnosed with rabies. On February 12, the child died.
According to Beijing Youth Daily, the doctor in the intensive care unit of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical College, who was responsible for the treatment of the child, said that a child with rabies had indeed been admitted in mid-February, but the accurate cause of the infection was never determined.
Judging from the child’s own introduction, the child had two suspicious exposures before the onset of the disease:
1 was scratched by a puppy in May and June 2018;
2 was on December 30, 2018, and the hand wound was licked by another puppy while playing.
The first puppy has died, while the second puppy still has no abnormalities when the child is sick and has always had a gentle temper. Therefore, some people believe that the puppy licks his wound this time and causes infection with rabies virus .
Weihui City Center for Disease Control and Prevention WeChat official account screenshot
So, what disease is rabies? Can licking lead to infection? Today I will answer your questions and answer questions one by one.
What disease is rabies?
Rabies is also called Mad dog disease or Hydrophophobia . It is an acute infectious disease caused by rabies virus. Almost all warm-blooded animals can be infected with rabies virus, but the most important ones are canines and felines. Animals infected with rabies virus bites, scratches or licks human mucous membranes and damaged skin can all lead to the spread of rabies virus.
It should be emphasized that viruses cannot invade the body through complete skin, so please pay attention to this point. In other words, whether licking by a dog will cause rabies, a very important detail is that the licking area of of an animal infected with rabies virus by has wounds, otherwise it will not be contagious.
The time from the time people are infected with the rabies virus to the onset is called the incubation period. The length of the incubation period is affected by a variety of factors, such as the severity of the wound, its distance from the head and face, the number of viruses infected, and the virulence of the virus. In general, the incubation period of rabies can be as long as several months, but it can also be shorter than several days. Judging from the existing rabies cases in my country, the incubation period of most cases is within half a year, generally half a month to three months.
What are the symptoms of rabies?
Rabies virus is a neurophilic virus that mainly invades the central nervous system. Typical patients generally have the following symptoms:
prodromal stage, the patient is general discomfort, burnout and weakness, fever, headache, etc., and may also have symptoms such as loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, abdominal distension, and stool obstruction. The only specific symptom in the early stage of is that some patients experience abnormal sensations such as burning, numbness, acupuncture, and itching near the wound.
Then the patient entered a state of high excitement. is prominently manifested as fear of uneasiness, fear of wind and water, difficulty breathing, chest pain, sweating, salivation, etc. 50%-80% of patients have the typical symptom of water fear . When swallowing, muscle spasms in the throat and other parts of the body are spasms, and sometimes even hearing the sound of water can cause laryngeal spasm, so it is also called water fear. Some patients are particularly sensitive to light, noise and sensory stimulation, with increased muscle tone and facial muscle spasms, and some patients have mental abnormalities and delirium, and have aggressive behaviors. The patient may die during an attack from mixed respiratory failure or circulatory failure, mainly central respiratory failure.
After the excitation period lasts for 1 to 3 days, the patient's spasms and convulsions gradually stop, and various symptoms of retarded paralysis begin to appear. Limb limb paralysis is more common, and he quickly enters a coma and dies from respiratory, circulation and systemic failure. Should
rabies vaccine be administered? Is " ten-day observation method " feasible?
Many people advocate the "ten-day observation method" of rabies, believing that as long as the animal bites its own within ten days and does not die, they will be fine. But in fact, The World Health Organization (WHO) stated in the "First Report of the Rabies Expert Consultation" released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005: "If an animal (mainly referring to dogs and cats) remains healthy during the 10-day observation period, or if a reliable laboratory uses correct diagnostic techniques to confirm that the animal is rabies negative, treatment (vaccination) can be terminated."
The theoretical basis of this method is that healthy dogs do not transmit rabies virus. When a dog is contagious, a large amount of rabies virus must have been reproduced in its brain. After 3 to 5 days, as the virus in the brain further reproduces, it will inevitably become ill and die within the following days. From this we can see that the "ten-day observation method" of is not wrong, but the mistake is that people often misunderstand it as doing nothing after being bitten, and just locking up the cat and dog that bites people and observing for ten days. When animals are fine, people will be fine. .
However, if the cats and dogs are fine, you may be fine, but if they are fine, you may not have time to treat them. 's real "ten-day observation method" is to start with rabies vaccination immediately after rabies is exposed, and then the animals are observed. If the animals remain healthy during the ten-day observation period, or if reliable laboratory diagnostic techniques confirm that the animals do not carry rabies virus, the remaining vaccine can be stopped. Therefore, the effect of observing ten days is to help decide whether to stop the subsequent treatment, rather than turning a blind eye to from the beginning.
How to prevent rabies?
But don't worry too much, because rabies is completely preventable. As long as we are bitten or licked by animals, remember these treatment steps:
Squeeze: This is the primary measure to prevent rabies virus infection. The purpose is to squeeze all the dirty blood in time and reduce the chance of rabies virus infection. The method repeatedly squeezes from the proximal end to the distal end. Remember not to suck blood with your mouth, because the rabies virus may invade tiny damage in the mouth, prompting the virus to enter the brain more quickly and accelerate the onset of the disease.
Two rinse: After squeezing all the dirty blood, it should be washed immediately with 20% soapy water, water and running water alternately, and rinse all bites and scratches for at least 15 minutes (when rinsing deeper wounds, increase the water pressure). Wash the wound immediately after the injury is much less likely to be infected than without rinsing.
Three disinfection: After rinsing , quickly apply 2-3% iodine or 75% alcohol to the wound to further reduce the chance of infection. After the above steps of
are completed, must immediately go to the hospital for rabies vaccine and receive normal vaccine injections, so as to ensure that you are not infected with rabies virus .
Source: Popular Science China (ID: Science_China), author: Huang Jia, Ph.D., School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Comprehensive Beijing Headline Client (Reporter: Kong Linghan)
Editors of this issue: Hu Hongjiang, Li Na,
