Rabies is a severe, fatal disease affecting all warm-blooded animals and humans. The rabies virus member of the family Rhabdoviridae and is found worldwide, except for a few places such as New Zealand, Hawaii, Japan, Australia, and the British Isles. Highly contagious, the disease is shed in the saliva of infected animals. When an animal becomes infected, it can take between one week to eight months before clinical signs of rabies develop.
Clinical signs occur due to the destruction and severe inflammation of the nerves in the body. The virus also goes to the salivary glands, where the virus can be shed in the saliva. Once signs of neurological disease are visible, the disease progresses very rapidly and the animal usually dies within a week. When a rabies-infected animal bites another animal, or the infected saliva contacts the mucous membranes of an animal, the virus starts to replicate itself in the muscle cells, and then spreads via the nerves to the spinal cord before moving rapidly to the brain.
