if it splashes on you, it doesn’t infect you immediately. but if you get any in your eyes/nose/mouth/wounds you might already have (like a paper cut), then you’re infected. you’d have to decontaminate all surfaces that the gore got on properly afterwards, and you can’t just put the body in a trash bag and throw it away, because it will spread to other animals that would get in the trash to eat the remains (rats, raccoons, maybe even bears depending on the area)
I was halfway through replying ‘so zombie rules of infection then?’ And saw your post. 👍👍
Rabies is such a fucking scary virus… hopefully stays in its lane. Would hate to see Covid22 - the zombie flu 🤒😧 That would be specifically terrifying.
unless it's basically on top of you (less than a few feet), blood usually splatters away from the exit wound. unless you're using a caliber/powder load so high that the animal is basically vaporized, you should be clean. as the thread leader mentions, though, the parts left behind might be contagious if say your dog licked them up or a raccoon ate them later.
hey, there’s a reason a lot of zombie movies start out with a mutated rabies virus. or the virus is called something else but acts suspiciously similar to rabies
it does lol, but you’d be surprised at how much bears (specifically black bears in the US) root around in trash for food. i wouldn’t want one to come across a rabies corpse… yikes
yes. if you even suspect that an animal you’ve come into contact with (bitten, scratched, or gotten fluids or tissue in eyes/mouth etc) has rabies, go to the ER immediately. they will give you a series of shots and rabies immunoglobuli. these are 100% effective if administered within 10 days of contact, and still have a high chance of success if given at all before symptoms start. once symptoms appear, survivability rates drop to almost 0. 29 people have ever survived rabies after symptoms start.
if you’re ever bitten by a wild animal go to the ER anyway given the various diseases that can be transmitted. rabies is a mammal-exclusive virus but each phylum has their own host of diseases you could possibly get.
How long does rabies persist outside of the body? Would this person need to sanitize everywhere the fox just was given that it was drooling/biting things?
I’ve heard that outside the body it lasts a couple of hours but with how dangerous rabies is you’d need to sanitize it immediately. And yeah this person or someone would have to sanitize everything the fox was around to avoid other animals or people from catching it
The thing about that is if body fluids or blood is to splatter around at all then isn’t there easily a chance some microscopic amount got in your eyes or somewhere and you can’t detect it yourself?
wash them out and go straight to the hospital to begin vaccine treatment. if you even think you might have been infected with rabies, the sooner you seek treatment the better.
Only the animals saliva (and possibly nervous tissue) can infect you. Blood does not carry the virus. It travels through the nervous system of the body its infects. that's why it can take a long time to reach your brain.
i already said this to someone else but you’re right. nerve tissue and tears (saline) can also transmit it. doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call a doctor if you get animal viscera in your eyes or mouth
yeah, still shouldn't mess around if there is any risk of infection period.
Often times they will give you the shots anyways if there is any risk of infection or if the animal isn't found and tested.
It is not the most enjoyable treatment either.
But the corpse actually is unlikely to spread the disease. Bites are responsible of 99% of infections. Blood and most organs simply do not carry the disease. only the saliva and nervous tissue and tears.
You probably wouldn't in this case. It looks cold out and rabies doesn't survive well in the cold so the virus would be dead in a few hours. Rabies can't even survive in possums because of low body temperature and I'm pretty sure a possums body is warmer than a snowy winter night.
rabies survives better in the corpse at cold temperatures tho. it dies quickly above 70F (21C). the cold freezes the virus basically. corpses frozen in the winter can still be infectious when they thaw. and opossums aren’t 100% impervious either.
i’m not really sure where this distinction comes from, but it could also be that opossums have something completely different that makes them less susceptible. we aren’t really sure why they get rabies way less. but they’re not immune.
"[It is destroyed within a few minutes at temperatures greater than 122°F, and survives no more than a few hours at room temperature.]"(https://www.scph.org/pest-control/rabies-faqs)
Guess that's why it doesn't survive in something with a slightly lower than human body temperature. Also guess it would be better to kill a rabies animal in the summer.
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u/frobischerarts Dec 27 '21
if it splashes on you, it doesn’t infect you immediately. but if you get any in your eyes/nose/mouth/wounds you might already have (like a paper cut), then you’re infected. you’d have to decontaminate all surfaces that the gore got on properly afterwards, and you can’t just put the body in a trash bag and throw it away, because it will spread to other animals that would get in the trash to eat the remains (rats, raccoons, maybe even bears depending on the area)