What is rabies? What types of animals transmit rabies? How can you know if you have been infected with rabies? Six-year-old Ryker and his family quickly learn about rabies after he contracts the disease. This colorfully illustrated book tells his story that children will enjoy while informing parents about the dangers of rabies even in our modern age.

Rabies is one of the oldest known pathogens, is incurable, and has the highest fatality rate of all infectious diseases. The Americas is the only region with bat rabies virus, including vampire bat rabies. The region is rich in cultural references and notable for many discoveries in the field, including the current vaccine potency test, diagnostic assay, conception of oral vaccines for wildlife, the first human survivor and the first successful canine rabies program executed at a broad level. Rabies remains the most important viral zoonosis, with tens of thousands of human fatalities and tens of millions of exposures annually, which can be used to model for other pathogens, such as COVID-19. There is an international effort to eliminate human rabies caused by dogs over the next decade, and the Americas represent the primary region with the greatest proof-of-concept evidence to accomplish this goal. This two-volume set addresses the medical history and modern results of rabies in countries throughout the Americas, including the implications of and on cultural, economic, sociological, and research developments in the region. Volume I presents an overview of concepts critical to the study of rabies in the region, including evolutionary aspects, reservoir ecology and control, elimination efforts, vaccine development, and disease hallmarks and progression. It also analyzes the long-term cultural, social, and economic impacts of the disease in the Americas.

This book provides essential worldwide reference information regarding rabies for public health officials, veterinarians, physicians, virologists, epidemiologists, infectious disease specialists, laboratory diagnosticians, and wildlife biologists. The book is divided into six main sections, covering topics such as the rabies virus, including antigenic and biochemical characteristics; pathogenesis, including the immune response to the infection, pathology, and latency; diagnostic techniques; rabies epidemiology in a variety of wild and domestic animals; rabies control, including vaccination of wild and domestic animals, as well as control on the international level; and finally a discussion of rabies in humans, local wound and serum treatment, and human post-exposure vaccination. Natural History of Rabies, First Edition has been the principal worldwide reference since 1975. The new Second Edition has been completely updated, providing current information on this historically deadly disease.

Rabies is the most current and comprehensive account of one of the oldest diseases known that remains a significant public health threat despite the efforts of many who have endeavored to control it in wildlife and domestic animals. During the past five years since publication of the first edition there have been new developments in many areas on the rabies landscape. This edition takes on a more global perspective with many new authors offering fresh outlooks on each topic. Clinical features of rabies in humans and animals are discussed as well as basic science aspects, molecular biology, pathology, and pathogenesis of this disease. Current methods used in defining geographic origins and animal species infected in wildlife are presented, along with diagnostic methods for identifying the strain of virus based on its genomic sequence and antigenic structure. This multidisciplinary account is essential for clinicians as well as public health advisors, epidemiologists, wildlife biologists, and research scientists wanting to know more about the virus and the disease it causes. * Offers a unique global perspective on rabies where dog rabies is responsible for killing more people than yellow fever, dengue fever, or Japanese encephalitis * More than 7 million people are potentially exposed to the virus annually and about 50,000 people, half of them children, die of rabies each year * New edition includes greatly expanded coverage of bat rabies which is now the most prominent source of human rabies in the New World and Western Europe, where dog rabies has been controlled * Recent successes of controlling wildlife rabies with an emphasis on prevention is discussed * Approximately 40% updated material incorporates recent knowledge on new approaches to therapy of human rabies as well as issues involving organ and tissue transplantation * Includes an increase in illustrations to more accurately represent this diseases’ unique horror

Excerpt from Rabies and How to Prevent It: A Paper Read Before the American Social Science Association, Saratoga, September 8, 1886 Essentially an old disease, despite of what many say, since we find mention of it in old Latin and Greek authors, - it is probable that the name of none of the ills inflicted on suffering humanity strikes with such dire effect upon the ordinary mind as does this one word, - rabies or hydrophobia. For many years this last term has been applied more especially to the disease as it manifests itself in the human being, but even in this case it is a misnomer, and the sooner it is done away with and banished from both scientific and ordinary dictionaries the better. Derived from the two Greek words hudor, water, phobos, fear, it indicates a symptom found in certain cases in man, but by no means invariably, and only rarely met with in dogs and other animals. The apparent dread of all liquids in man is more especially intensified by the fact that all attempts to swallow are extremely painful, even in the case of solid food, and spasm of the larynx, pharynx and sophagus being brought about by the attempted ingestion of liquids. There is no fear of the liquid itself; it is the paroxysm that is almost certain to follow its being swallowed or even an attempt at swallowing it, that is much feared and dreaded by the human being. Because a dog drinks water let not the mistake be made of saying that he is not suffering from rabies. During the first stages of the disease, the dog drinks water ravenously, and even after the constriction has taken place in the throat, which renders its deglutition difficult, the mad dog will push his head deep into the water and try to force it down. Dogs have been known to swim rivers during the ferocious stage, and in many cases described by the most competent authorities water has not only been drank, but taken in such exceptionally large quantities as to cause remark. Let not, then, the fact that the suspected dog drinks water lead any one to pronounce the bitten person free from danger, and not in need of precautionary and preventive treatment, as has been done before this and serious results followed. To this end let us do away with the word hydrophobia, and substitute the more generic term rabies. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

More than 99% of all human rabies deaths occur in the developing world and although effective and economical control measures are available the disease has not been brought under control throughout most of the affected countries. Given that a major factor in the low level of commitment to rabies control is a lack of accurate data on the true public health impact of the disease this report of a WHO Expert Consultation begins by providing new data on the estimated burden of the disease and its distribution in the world. It also reviews recent progress in the classification of rabies viruses rabies pathogenesis and diagnosis rabies pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis the management of rabies patients and canine as well as wildlife rabies prevention and control.