“March Madness” - Rabies awareness month

Rabies.  The sound of the word sends a chill down
my spine. I have seen what this virus can do, and it’s very very frightening:  Hydrophobia, ‘foaming at the mouth’, psychotic screaming, savage agression, immunity to pain.  These are symptoms of a dark, terrifying Force - a Fury unleashed.

It astounds me to know that in this 21st century, such an ancient, Evil disease can flourish in so many parts of the world.  It truly is ’madness’.

Rabies is one of the ‘neglected’ diseases of our time.  It is 100% vaccine preventable, yet 100% fatal once symptoms are present.  No other infectious disease has such an unforgiving mortality rate.  Ebola, by comparison, carries at least a 10% chance of survival. 

Miracles do occur (see Jeanna Giese) but certainly not enough of them.  We need more miracles out there, especially for the 55,000+ people who die from rabies every year according to the World Health Organization (WHO).  The fear, the terror I’ve seen in children’s faces suffering from rabies haunts me.  I wish somebody would do something…

Saving a kid from rabies

It just so happened I was traveling with a fellow doctor in the Philippines.  We were on the outskirts of Manila, a mega-metropolis pulsating with the life of 14 million souls.  We had stopped at a road-side stand for a cool drink because of the oppressive heat.  The humidity was stifling and sweating didn’t help much. 

My friend was conversing with some people in the shop.  They soon learned we were doctors, as Filipino’s are an interested and inquisitive lot.  One of the men claimed a rabid dog had been seen around the neighborhood just recently.  We were surprised and quite interested to know more, because of the significant public health threat for that neighborhood.  The man said the dog had bitten two people before it died.  We asked if the people had gotten anti-rabies treatment, but he didn’t know.  We realized we had better find out.  One more draught of iced cold coconut juice and off we went!

The man took us to the neighborhood or barrio where the dog had roamed the streets.  The locals confirmed that indeed a mangey street dog had been staggering around the area just 3 weeks ago.  The dog had bitten a man and a young girl, before it died several days later.  Certainly the description of the dog sounded rabid:  foaming at the mouth, running and biting at everything in its path.  These bite victims were in real trouble unless we could confirm they were getting anti-rabies treatments.  After 3 weeks of incubation, it would be quite possible these victims could develop clinical rabies at any time unless properly treated.  There wasn’t much time left.