The Cordillera office of the Department of Health (DOH-CAR) reported a significant increase in the number of rabies cases in the region which was pegged at 100 percent from January to November this year after recording some ten cases compared to the 5 cases reported by the different disease reporting units during the same period last year.
Based on the data obtained from the DOH-CAR’s Regional Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit (RESU), rabies-related deaths also increased by 100 percent from the previous 5 cases last year to 10 deaths during the same reckoning period this year.
Health officials claimed that it is ironic that all of the rabies infected individuals died in the course of their being provided immediate medication considering that the victims were brought to the health facilities when their condition were already worst.
Experts descried rabies to be a fatal encephalomyelitis caused by the rabies virus, rhabdo virus of the genus lyssa virus.
Further, it is a zoonotic disease transmitted to humans through contact, mainly bites and scratches, with infected animals both domestic and wild.
Symptoms of rabies in individuals start with a sense of apprehension, headache, fever, malaise, excitability and aero-phobia.
Health officials disclosed that the rabies disease progresses to paresis or paralysis, spasm of swallowing muscles leading to fear of water or hydrophobia, delirium convulsions and eventually death.
Among the rabies prevention and control measures include the regular vaccination of dogs or animals being taken cared of; in case of exposures to animals that are suspected of having rabies, immediate attempts should be made to identify, capture or kill the animal involved for rabies examination and in managing animal bite cases, individuals are advised to visit the nearest animal bite treatment center and the concerned local government unit to follow the national treatment guidelines on animal bite management and rabies post exposure prophylaxis guide.
Once a person begins showing signs and symptoms of rabies, the disease nearly always causes death. For this reason, anyone who may have a risk of contracting rabies should receive rabies vaccinations for protection.
The first symptoms of rabies may be very similar to those of the flu and may last for days. Later signs and symptoms may include fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, agitation, anxiety, confusion, hyperactivity, difficulty swallowing, excessive salivation, fear brought on by attempts to drink fluids because of difficulty swallowing water, hallucinations, insomnia and partial paralysis.
In rare cases, rabies can be spread when infected saliva gets into an open wound or the mucous membranes, such as the mouth or eyes. This could occur if an infected animal were to lick an open cut on your skin.
By Dexter A. See
