Rabies :: essays research papers

RabiesRabies is an septic disease of animals which is a member of a group of viruses constituting the family Rhabdoviridae. The virus mote is covered ina fatty membrane, is bullet-shaped, 70 by one hundred eighty nanometres and contains a singlehelical strand of ribonucleic acid (RNA).Although madness is comm however broadcast among domestic dogs and wild carnivorousanimals, all warm-blooded animals are susceptible to infection. The virus isoften present in the salivary glands of infected animals, referred to as rabid,and is excreted in the saliva. The bite of the infected animal easilyintroduces the virus into a fresh wound. In humans, rabies is not usually spreadfrom man to man, rather the majority of infections occur from rabid dogs. Aftera person has been inoculated, the virus enters small nerve ends around the siteof the bite, and slowly travels up the nerve to reach the central nervous system(CNS) where it reproduces itself, and go out then travel down nerves to thesali vary glands and replicate further. The snip it takes to do this depends onthe length of the nerve it must travel - a bite on the foot go out have a muchlengthier incubation period than a facial bite would. This period whitethorn last fromtwo weeks to six months, and often the original wound will have healed and beenforgotten by the time symptoms begin to occur.Symptoms in humans present themselves in one of two forms furious rabies, or dumb rabies. The former is called such because of the severe nature and rangeof the symptoms. The virus, upon range the CNS will present the person withheadache, fever, irritability, restlessness and anxiety. Progression may occuron to muscle pains, excessive salivation, and vomiting. After a fewer days or upto a week the person may go through a stage of excitement, and be afflicted with wicked muscle spasms which are sometimes set off by swallowing of saliva orwater. Because of this the afflicted will drool and learn to fear water, whichis wh erefore rabies in humans was sometimes called Hydrophobia. The patients are alsohighly sensitive to air or drafts blown on their face. The stage lasts onlyfews days before the onset of a coma, then death. Dumb rabies begins similarlyto furious rabies, but instead of symptoms progressing to excitement, a steady go to sleep and quiet downhill state occurs. This may be accompanied with palsybefore death. Rabies diagnosis in this type of cases can be missed.Unfortunately with both furious and dumb rabies, once the disease has interpreted hold