How long can you live if you are scratched by a cat and bleed?

Rabies phobia is a unique phenomenon in China. No country in the world attaches so much importance to rabies as China. The general prejudice and fallacy against rabies is one of the important reasons for the massive abuse of rabies vaccine in China.

At present, China people are most afraid of infectious diseases, except AIDS, which is rabies. Rabies phobia, referred to as "phobia", has now become a very popular psychological disease that can almost keep pace with "phobia".

Recently, the abuse of rabies vaccine in China has aroused widespread concern. The annual consumption of rabies vaccine in China reaches150,000 people, exceeding 80% of the global total. If vaccines are not used at all, 30,000 people will die of rabies every year in China. This means that 99.8% of the vaccinators can not be vaccinated theoretically, and at least 1/3 of them may be abused. So, what circumstances may belong to abuse? How to avoid abuse?

The most common manifestation of phobia is the abuse of rabies vaccine. Even after repeated vaccination, it is still scary. The prevalence of phobia is obviously one of the important reasons for the abuse of rabies vaccine in China.

Rabies is an infectious disease with the highest mortality and the lowest incidence, and it is easy for people to overreact. At present, unscientific remarks about rabies are rampant on the Internet or in real life, and all kinds of strange opinions are quite common among "experts" and the public, which makes some people who have contacted cats and dogs (even those who have never contacted them at all) stay in fear for a long time, and even develop into obsessive-compulsive disorder or hysteria. Some people have been vaccinated many times, but they still travel thousands of miles to Wuhan for antibody testing every month, fearing that "once the antibody is lowered, rabies will break out." Some people think that the virus has infiltrated their brains, and they will die, lose their jobs, look up information on the Internet all day, and be at a loss in all kinds of contradictory information. Some people suspect that the vaccine is fake, some people suspect that there is a live virus in the vaccine, some people suspect that rabies virus can spread through the air, and some people suspect that nurses and experts are struggling with endless troubles all day.

On August 22, 2008, in Potou Village, Yanfeng Town, Haikou City, two compulsory immunization medical staff were injecting vaccine into a domestic dog. (CFP/ figure)

When it comes to rabies, we must first clarify the most basic fact: the risk of rabies is not the same as that of AIDS (there is no effective vaccine for the latter at present, and the relevant basic immune mechanism is still unclear). The prevention and treatment of rabies has been basically solved in medicine for a long time. Rabies has been effectively controlled in all developed countries and some developing countries in the world, and the number of rabies deaths has remained at or near zero every year for many years. Rabies 100% can be prevented: no matter how serious the exposure is, 100% can be avoided as long as it is treated according to the plan approved by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In this article, the author will list some representative cases and explain how to avoid the abuse of rabies vaccine. The author will provide several simple and practical standards to help phobia patients get out of the shadows as soon as possible.

How long is the incubation period?

The incubation period of rabies may be as long as forty years? Fifty years? Even for life. Is China going to set the Guinness Book of Records again? In some professional magazines and even textbooks in China, the incubation period of rabies is often described as decades.

Are these "cases" in China really rabies? Because there is no laboratory diagnosis basis, or it is impossible to prove that no new infection has occurred recently (for example, through some special or rare ways), these "cases" have not been recognized by international academic circles, and even passed down as jokes internationally, as an example of the low level of related science in China.

Domestic and foreign data show that the incubation period of rabies is usually 1-3 months, and the incubation period of a few serious head and face bites may be as short as 7 days, and the incubation period of a few cases (less than 1% of the total) may exceed one year.

At present, the longest incubation period of rabies recognized by the international mainstream scientific community is 6 years. American scholar 199 1 reported the case in a professional magazine. The deceased was a Filipino immigrant who never left the United States after immigrating to the United States. Because the probability of rabies infection in the United States is extremely small, and the results of partial gene sequence analysis prove that the rabies virus isolated from the brain of the deceased is the same as the strain prevalent in the country of origin of the deceased, this report proves with the most convincing evidence so far that the incubation period of rabies may be as long as 6 years.

Due to the small number of similar cases and the incomplete evidence chain, the relevant academic circles still have objections to the case report. For example, many French scholars believe that cases with incubation period of more than one year, if any, are very few, and the possibility of recurrence after one year is slim. They all laughed at the idea of extending the incubation period.

Too many people have been bitten by dogs in China for decades. If the incubation period of rabies is really that long and so many people have to be vaccinated, then the annual vaccination amount of rabies in China will increase by a considerable amount. Many phobia patients are scared silly by the legend that rabies has a long incubation period.

Popularize the "ten-day observation method"

We must firmly believe that healthy dogs will not spread rabies! Based on the results of field investigation in China, Chinese and American experts jointly wrote relevant papers, which were published in the third issue of American Journal of Vector-borne Diseases between People and Animals in 2008. But physical health is not equal to real health, which must be tested by experiments or identified by "ten-day observation". After a person is bitten by a dog, if the dog can be killed immediately and the brain tissue is taken for testing, it can be determined whether the bitten person needs vaccination according to the test results (whether there is virus or not). If animals are unconditionally killed on the spot for experiments, the "ten-day observation method" recognized by WHO can be applied: "If dogs (or cats) remain healthy during the observation period of 10 days ... the treatment can be terminated."

In recent ten years, our laboratory has not found enough evidence to deny the "ten-day observation method" at home and abroad. This method is a simple and practical method to judge whether dogs (or cats) are contagious, and it is also suitable for China.

It should be noted that in the epidemic areas where rabies is prevalent, people who have not been vaccinated before begin to "10 days".