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My disease of study is rabies most commonly transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal.
Common name: Rabies virus
Scientific name: Rabies lyssavirus
Genus: Lyssavirus
Species: Rabies lyssavirus

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Rabies was first detected in Greece by philosophers Democritus and Aristotle who described it as the dog suffering from madness and becoming irritable, any animal they bite also exhibits this madness. It is also seen in ancient tablets from Mesopotamia that state that there is a fine for someone who transports a rabid animal and said animal bites someone. They also state excerpt of conversations where rabies are brought up.

The suspected infectious agent was the saliva of dogs that acted similar to the poison of a snake.

Rabies is actually a viral zoonotic disease. A zoonotic disease is a disease that is transmissible from a vertebrate animal to people.

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(Presence or absence of rabies worldwide, 2007. The World Health Organization has been collecting rabies data through the World Survey of Rabies every year.)

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Rabies spread throughout the entire world and now it is found everywhere except Antarctica.

Rabies is thought to have been found nearly everywhere with the one exception of Antarctica and the main transmitters were dogs who carried the rabies with them and as they traveled they helped spread it.

Nowadays the cases of rabies in humans in the USA are rare thanks to animal control and vaccines. But across the world there is an estimated 59000 deaths occurring annually, mostly in Africa and Asia. This is due to the poor populations unable to get treated or the disease going unnoticed until it's too late.

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Rabies is 100% fatal once clinical symptoms appear. But people can be treated with a vaccine to effectively immunize them after exposure if done on time.

Virulence means the harm done by a pathogen to the host following infection. The virulence of this disease seems to have remained the same throughout time. It moves from its origin of infection to the central nervous system and eventually the host dies.

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When this disease was found to be transmitted through the saliva of a rabid animal precautions were put into place to try and prevent the disease from entering the central nervous system. These precautions are called post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). This includes extensively washing with water and soap and depending on the severity, requires getting a vaccine.

Some medical advances used to combat the disease were the development of vaccines and understanding of how diseases work.

Some new technologies applied to this disease to combat it were the development of cell culture for virus propagation. This led to the development of the vaccine now used to treat the disease.

There are three categories that define whether the vaccine must be administrated or not. Category I is touching or animal licking when feeding but only skin exposure. Category II is nibbling of uncovered skin or minor scratches with no bleeding, for this category vaccine is required. Category III is biting or scratching that lead to skin damage, for this the vaccine is required as well as administration of anti-rabies immunoglobulin antibodies.

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Rabies nowadays is controlled in several developed countries through mass vaccination of dogs who are the main mammals that transmit the disease. However in developing countries this is still a problem because doing a mass vaccination is either difficult or just not possible for them.

In order to combat the disease in the countries that still have this problem several agencies and organizations partnered together to help the countries. Some organizations are the Center for Disease Control's Proxvirus and Rabies Branch (PRB), Humane Society International, the countries ministries of health, etc. They all get together to try and control the disease by focusing on the mammal control through mass vaccination and provide better treatment for bitten victims.

Something that the leaderships could have done better in response to the disease is to have acted quickly and as soon as possible.

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Although this disease is now preventable there is a very big problem with people not being educated in this disease thus leading to more cases. Because people are not educated on the disease they don't know the signs and symptoms on animals with rabies and rabies in humans, until its too late. But education is on the rise and more people are knowledgeable of the disease and society as a whole is more aware of the disease.

Before people used to be so scared of rabies and did not know how it worked that many committed suicide. Nowadays people know more about the disease and the fear has diminished a lot.

People have learned from the physical effect of the disease. Mostly about the signs and symptoms and what they are, as well that hydrophobia is one of the symptoms that once present it might be too late. But some of the early symptoms can lead to getting treatment faster or the idea that if one is bitten by an animal suspected of being rabid to immediately get checked.

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The most revealing aspect that I learned about my disease is that there are a lot of people that do not know about the disease or its signs and symptoms. But this is something that the government and CDC are trying to solve by providing information for people and educating them.

Something that I learned that surprised me about my disease is that it is still a problem in poor, marginalized and vulnerable populations. Before I learned about my disease I thought it was curable and/or easily preventable but after reading more about it I have learned that it is still a problem in some areas of the world.

Something that I came across in my research that should have been part of the Padlet assignment is the cost of the treatment. For example my disease was rabies, on average the cost of treatment varies from $245 to $100 million (in the USA). This is one of the reasons for why there are still deaths from this disease, the cost for treatments is too high and most people can't afford it.