Understanding the Rabies Virus: a Comprehensive Overview

2. The rabies virus is in the household Rhabdoviridae in the Mononegavirale order of infections. The rabies infection is normally bullet-shaped and is made from a long single-stranded spiral chain of RNA. The infection envelope is made from matrix protein and is studded with glycoproteins.

3. Individuals usually contract rabies after they are bitten by an animal that has been infected with the rabies infection, though it has been shown that in unusual cases rabies can infect people who simply touch contaminated animals.

The infection spreads from the site of the bite. The rabies infection attacks afferent neuron in the body, due to the fact that the body immune system does not inspect afferent neuron as frequently as other cells. After a while, the rabies infection reaches the spine, a big of complex of nerves resulting in the brain.

As soon as the infection is in the brain, it discovers a nerve cell and utilizes its glycoproteins to connect to the membrane. The virus is then brought into the afferent neuron by pinocytosis.

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After the infection gets in the nerve cell, it usually moves through the cytoplasm and hijacks the free ribosomes. The infection advises the ribosomes to produce copies of itself. The copies leave the brain and travel down through the nerves to the salivary glands, where the infection waits on the individual to bite something else, so that the infection will again be transmitted.

4. Although the rabies infection can infect all warm-blooded mammals, it mostly affects raccoons, particularly on the East Coast.

In the United States, cases of human rabies are progressively rare, however some do occur. Residing in a developing nation increases your danger of getting rabies. People who work near animals are also most likely to get the virus. Lastly, recent wounds to the head and neck are believed to increase the rate at which the rabies infection transfers to the brain.

5. Symptoms of rabies consist of fever, headache, agitation, anxiety, confusion, problem swallowing water, extreme salivation (lathering at the mouth), hydrophobia due to the trouble of swallowing water, hallucinations, sleeping disorders, and partial paralysis. Symptoms of rabies often do not appear up until many days after the bite.

6.If you have been vaccinated for the rabies virus, you are in no danger if an animal bites you. Even if you have not been vaccinated, if you are given the vaccine before the symptoms of rabies starts to appear, you will still be alright. However, once the symptoms start to appear, the patient usually dies, most often from respiratory failure. For this reason, rabies is very dangerous.

7.Once you have contracted rabies, you should rapidly be given a form of post-exposure vaccine. This vaccine consists of two parts, one being a dead form of the rabies virus and the other containing human rabies immune globlin, which fights the disease in the body until your own antibodies are produced. It is important to note that if you are showing serious symptoms of the disease (such as hallucinations and hypersalivation) this treatment will have no effect and you will most likely die.