Rabid raccoons are not that warm and fuzzy.
The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting a case of rabies in a 17 year-old girl from Texas who recovered from the disease without the need for intensive care. The girl had been exposed to bats two months before the onset of neurological symptoms of "severe frontal headache, photophobia (fear of light), emesis (vomiting), neck pain, dizziness, and paresthesia (tingling) of face and forearms."
Lab and imaging findings showed some sort of infection of her central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Once lab findings came back indicating that she had been exposed to the rabies virus, she was given treatment specific for rabies. Her health improved, and she went home.
Rabies is a viral disease of the nervous system in mammals. Though you may think of "Cujo" when you think of rabies, very few cases of dogs with rabies are reported in the United States. Rabies in dogs is more a problem in developing nations. In the United States, most cases of rabies are associated with bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes. Though there are intensive campaigns to vaccinate wild animals, there are still some cases where these animals come in contact with people.
It is very important that you seek medical advice if you come into contact with a wild animal such as a bat. The girl in the MMWR report did not feel that she was bitten in any way, but the bats in a cave she was exploring did fly into her while she was there. If the vaccine and immune-globulin is given before the onset of symptoms, full-blown rabies can be avoided. If not, death is all but certain. The Texas case is only the seventh documented case of someone ever surviving a symptomatic rabies infection. The other six required intensive medical care and have long-lasting neurological problems.
Comments
What about distemper? I think I know some people who have that for life...
WELL IDK BU TI GOT SO GLAD THAT ALL THAT MEDICAL WORK HELPED TO SAVE HERE : P
Some rabid animals are aggressive and attack people, but actually rabid raccoons or infected wild animals CAN also become warm and fuzzy. This is called "dumb rabies" which the wild animal becomes the exact opposite and will appear docile, even cuddly, to what it would normally be afraid of. They can and will still bite or even a particle of saliva to an open wound or scratch is enough to become infected. Ironically domesticated pets become like wild and aggressive-the exact opposite of its baseline nature-due to the neurological toxins of rabies.
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