Rabies virus (RABV) is transmitted through direct contact (such as through broken skin or mucous membranes in your eyes, nose, or mouth) with saliva or brain/nervous system tissue from an infected animal. Rabies is fatal but preventable. It can spread to people and pets if they are bitten or scratched by a rabid animal.

 

Rabies virus gets into your body when the saliva (spit) of an infected animal gets into an open wound (usually from a bite). It moves very slowly along nerves into your central nervous system (your brain and spinal cord). When it reaches your brain, the damage causes neurological symptoms. From there, rabies leads to coma and death.

 

About 59,000 people around the world die each year from rabies. In the U.S., human rabies cases are rare — fewer than three people get rabies each year. This is thanks to many people getting vaccinated soon after exposure.

 

Rabies is most common in rural parts of Asia and Africa, though it is found on all continents except Antarctica. In the U.S., rabies is commonly found in wild animals. But dogs carry rabies in many other countries. Children are more likely to get rabies than adults.

 

Rabies moves from an infected wound to your brain over time. There are several phases that most people go through: incubation, prodromal phase, acute neurologic phase and coma.

 

Rabies virus can spend days to weeks in your body before it gets into your nervous system (incubation). You do not have any symptoms during this time. If you receive treatment early in the incubation period, you will not get rabies.

 

RABV travels through your nerve cells into your brain and spinal cord, causing nerve damage as it goes. The prodromal phase starts when the rabies virus has entered your nervous system. Your immune system tries to fight back, causing flu-like symptoms. Nerve damage might cause tingling, pain or numbness where you were bitten. This lasts two to 10 days. There are not any effective treatments when rabies reaches this phase.

 

In this phase, the rabies virus starts damaging your brain and spinal cord. About two-thirds of people have furious rabies, with symptoms like aggression, seizures and delirium. Others have paralytic rabies, with weakness and paralysis progressing from the bite wound to the rest of their body. Furious rabies can last a few days to a week. Paralytic rabies can last up to a month.

 

Many people enter a coma in the final stages of a rabies infection. Rabies eventually leads to death.

 

You usually have no symptoms of rabies for several weeks after it enters your body. When rabies makes it to your central nervous system (prodromal phase), you experience flu-like symptoms. In the final stages, you have neurological (brain) symptoms.

 

Neurological symptoms of rabies are either furious or paralytic. Furious rabies symptoms may come and go with periods of calm in between (furious episodes).

 

The virus RABV causes rabies in humans and animals. It moves around in your body through your nerves, causing nerve damage. It hides from your immune system until it gets to your brain, where it causes brain damage and eventually leads to death.

 

Rabies is carried by warm-blooded animals (mammals) and collects in their saliva (spit). You usually get rabies through the bite of an infected animal.

 

Rabies is most commonly found in bats, skunks, raccoons and foxes, but other animals — including your pet dog or cat — can become infected. If a break in your skin comes in contact with the spit of an infected animal, you could get rabies.

 

Rarely, people have gotten rabies from receiving donated organs.

 

Rabies is most likely to be found in wild animals, including bats. In developing countries, most people get rabies from domestic dogs.