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Category: Science and Technology
Date Submitted: 03/25/2013 03:10 PM
Rabies Research Paper
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Theories of Disease Causation 3
Signs and Symptoms 6
Person / Animal 7
Place 9
Time 10
Rates 11
Prevention Measures 13
Conclusion 13
References 15
Introduction
Rabies is a disease, if a person gets infected with and leaves untreated, one may consider a death sentence. It is very fatal, that the known survivors of this disease you can count on the fingers of two hands. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] (2012) has documented only seven patients worldwide, who have recovered from this infection in its stage when signs begin to manifest. These patients achieved recovery after going through long periods of intensive care. Hence, although it is viral by etiology, which is known to be self-limiting, one may not spontaneously recover from this disease without thorough medical attention; however, new research suggests otherwise (Gilbert et al., 2012). Nevertheless, the facts are still alarming; thus, people must be well-informed about this type of disease. In the present paper, a wealth of information about rabies―its definition, the theories of its disease causation, its manifestation, its descriptive epidemiology, its rates in a worldwide and Canadian scale, and the recommended practices for its prevention―is investigated.
Theories of Disease Causation
Rabies is caused by a virus belonging to the Rhabdoviridae family, with a genus of Lyssavirus (Berger, 2011). It affects most, if not all, terrestrial mammals, which include humans. As such, rabies is described to be zoonotic, which means it can be transmitted to humans from animals (World Health Organization [WHO], 2012). The virus exists in different strains that vary from host to host, and it may affect either domestic or wild animals. In the grand scheme of things, there is a natural maintenance of viral transmission between mammalian species, wild or domestic, as propagated by different changes on the hosts (e.g....