Rabies still kills people around the world. I have seen three cases. It comes in two forms, dumb and vicious. I have seen both.
When I was about twelve, a vicious, rabid dog jumped on a dog on my street that had been tied with a big chain. Some time later, this German Shepherd broke the chain. Rabid animals have super strength. He grabbed my dog, who was looking through a screen door at me while I was getting my lessons. In those days, nobody vaccinated for rabies so all exposed dogs were killed. If I had not seen this happening, my dog would have become rabid and I would have become exposed for sure.
Today if a person is bitten, the animal is confined for 10 days because a rabid animal won’t live 10 days. If the animal is not caught, the person may be given the treatment. The old treatment was horrible, consisting of injections of a vaccine in the stomach muscles of a formalin killed growth of the rabies virus. Now we have hyper immune serum that is safe and painless but very expensive.
We had a three year old girl here who was treated years ago because the dog owner did not keep up the dog so the doctor gave the horrible treatment just to be safe. In another case, an animal was shot so that it could be caught. It was not killed but kept alive for the ten days so that the child evaded the treatment.
There is a human vaccine that I have had. It is important that every dog and cat be vaccinated by a vet so that there is a record of it. There is a three year and a one year shot. We tried the three year but most people didn’t keep up so we only do the one year which allows us to see the animal in case it has other problems.
Just out of vet school, I treated a dog that had a dumb look in his eyes, a droopy jaw and could not eat. Being just out of school, I was cautious so wore gloves to pass a stomach tube to feed. After two days, he died and for some reason I sent his head to the lab where rabies was diagnosed. Dumb rabies, dumb vet.
We have rabies but mostly in bats, skunks, foxes and coons. Any Mammal can get rabies.