Kathmandu, September 29

Many people are losing their lives in the country due lack of knowledge about rabies vaccine.

According to Dr Sher Bahadur Pun, coordinator of clinical research unit of Sukraraj Tropical Infectious Disease Hospital, the government provides rabies vaccine free of cost, but people do not seek vaccination due to lack of awareness and ignorance.

On the occasion of World Rabies Day, he informed that even educated people seemed ignorant and unaware about the vaccine. Most of the people come to the hospital only after they develop symptoms of rabies.

Dogs, the predominant host of rabies, can become infected from any rabid wild animal, and then infect humans. Dogs showing symptoms may bite a human, but they can also transmit the virus simply by licking if their saliva comes into contact with a scratch, damaged skin, or mucosa.

The rabies virus hijacks the nervous system and manipulates neural processes to make its host move faster. Infected humans will eventually hallucinate, become aggressive, and even fear water in the advanced stages of the disease.

Once these symptoms appear, rabies has no known cure and death is almost certain. Fortunately, unlike most vaccine-preventable diseases, rabies allows for post-exposure inoculation, because the time of infection is generally known by the victim — especially if they were bitten — and the disease’s incubation period is relatively long, ranging from days to years, but averaging three to eight weeks.