Thread by @NICU_doc_salone

It’s been a real Rabies/Lyssavirus week for me. And whenever that happens, I’m always amazed how much of an absolute operator the virus is. Some of it’s basic abilities include - Fooling your body into reducing its immune response (considering these viruses are 100% fatal….

…that’s quite the evolutionary achievement). One of the ways it does this is by inhibiting your body’s ability to produce B-interferon, which is a vital part of our immune machinery. In fact the #rabies virus has a whole chunk of its genome dedicated to doing just that….

…Rabies/lyssavirus also heads straight for your brain, where it increases the concentration of nitric oxide by about 25 times. That leads to a LOT of CNS overexcitement and it decreases your ability to fight off cell death; bad news when that’s happening in your 🧠……

…Once the virus has set up shop in your brain, it sends an absolute bundle of virus towards the nerves in your mouth that enable you to taste food. It does that because there are so many of them. The virus then squeezes its way out of those nerve endings, straight into the….

…saliva. It does a bit of an oral mucosa pincer movement by also sending virus directly to the salivary glands. End result is a MASSIVE concentration of virus in an infected animal’s saliva, which increases the chance of the virus being passed on when the animal bites you…..

….as if there wasn’t enough saliva in the animal’s mouth already, the virus inhibits the swallowing reflex, so you end up with an animal (or person) who has a huge CONCENTRATION of virus per ml of saliva AND a lot more saliva in their mouth, and running down their chin…

…That’s why rabid animals drool!

But you can’t always tell if an animal has rabies. Any mammal can have it and sometimes they look well. Believe it or not, well-looking raccoons are a big reservoir of rabies. Same with skunks!

…A common source of exposure is tourists feeding monkeys in temples. Those monkeys often bite and scratch, and a little extra aggressive behaviour might go unnoticed.

I adore bats. They play an absolutely vital role in ecosystem maintenance. They keep the insect population in check and the pollinate flowers and other plants. They’re awesome, and cute. But they carry a lot of lyssavirus, so they’re best admired from afar

Rabies and Lyssavirus are 100% FATAL (This is beginning to feel like an Eric Ding tweet 🚨🚨🚨) if we don’t treat you before you become sick. At that point it’s too late. So if you’re bitten or scratched by a mammal in a country where there is rabies, you need medical attention…

…that same day, ideally. In Australia, there’s no terrestrial rabies, but you should get medical attention if you are bitten or scratched by ANY bat. I’m also going to take this opportunity to post another picture of a cute insectivorous micro-bat

Treatment is usually some antibody treatment injected around the site of a bite or scratch, and a course of vaccines. This regime is 100% effective at protecting you, even if the animal has rabies or Lyssavirus.

TL:DR (and I wouldn’t blame you)…rabies evades the immune system, makes your brain hyper-excitable and infects every neuron in your body. It then hoses out virus via your salivary glands, so the circle of life continues. Don’t touch mammals in countries that have rabies…..

Thanks for reading. Here’s another cute bat photo. You can tell by looking at him that he hates Mondays as much as I do.