Rabies facts for kids
Rabies is a very serious viral disease that affects the brain and spinal cord. It's a type of zoonotic disease, which means it can spread from animals to humans. Rabies causes a condition called encephalitis, which is swelling of the brain.
Sadly, rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, meaning people and animals usually die from it. There is no cure for rabies after symptoms start. However, if a person gets treatment very soon after being infected, they have a chance to survive.
The virus spreads through saliva and blood. Most often, people get rabies from the bite of an infected mammal. In many countries, Pets like dogs are vaccinated to protect them from rabies.
How Rabies is Treated
Even though there's no cure for rabies once it starts, there is a vaccine that can prevent it. A vaccine is a special medicine that helps your body fight off a disease before you get sick.
The First Vaccine
The first rabies vaccine was created in 1885 by two scientists, Louis Pasteur and Pierre Paul Émile Roux. They made their vaccine using a weakened virus grown in rabbits. The very first person to receive this vaccine was a 9-year-old boy named Joseph Meister, who had been bitten by a dog. Similar vaccines are still used today, but newer ones are often made using cell culture methods.
Treatment After a Bite
If someone is bitten by an animal that might have rabies, there's a special treatment they can get. This treatment needs to start within six days of the bite. It's important because you can't tell if someone is infected until it's too late.
The first step is to thoroughly wash the wound. This helps to remove as much of the virus as possible. After that, patients are usually given a shot of immunoglobulin (which gives immediate protection) and a series of vaccine shots over about a month. This helps the body build its own defense against the virus.
- CDC. Human-to-human transmission of rabies via a corneal transplant -- France. MMWR 1980;29:25-6
Images for kids
-
Rendering of the rabies virus
-
An electron microscope image of rabies virus.
-
Commemorative stamp for Dr. Joseph Lennox Pawan, who isolated the rabies virus
-
Two dogs with the paralytic, or dumb, form of rabies
-
Rabies cases in humans and domestic animals — United States, 1938–2018
-
Miniature of the Cantiga #275 depicting two monks hospitaller with rabies being carried before St. Mary of Terena.
-
François Boissier de Sauvages de Lacroix, Della natura e causa della rabbia (Dissertation sur la nature et la cause de la Rage), 1777
See also
In Spanish: Rabia para niños
