In Norway, a 24-year-old woman died last week after catching rabies from a puppy she rescued while on vacation in the Philippines.
When the rescue turns to tragedy. A 24-year-old Norwegian woman died of rabies after being bitten by a dog she rescued in the Philippines, her family said in a statement Thursday (May 9).
In February, Brigitte Kallestad goes on vacation with friends to the Philippines. One fine day, during a scooter ride, they discover an abandoned puppy on the side of the road. “Brigitte put the puppy in a basket and brought him home. She cleaned him up, groomed him and, to his delight, he took on his colors. They were playing with the puppy in the garden,” explains his family in the statement. “After a while, the puppy started biting like puppies do. He grabbed the fingers when they were playing,” he said.
On her return from vacation, the young woman begins to feel bad. She was placed in intensive care at the Førde hospital where she worked and died there on Monday May 6 of rabies. According to the family, no one in his group of friends had been vaccinated against this disease. “Our dear Brigitte loved animals. Our fear is that this will happen again, for people with a heart as big as hers”, laments her family.
59,000 deaths from rabies each year
Indeed, “it is very important to remember that even if you have been vaccinated before your trip, if you have contact (with a potentially infected animal), you must go to a local clinic for a second vaccination. This is an endemic disease in 150 countries and it is a big health problem”, explains an official of the hospital of Brigitte in a interview at the BCC.
Because according to the World Health Organization (WHO), despite a 100% effective rabies vaccine, at least 59,000 people die of rabies every year worldwide.
Transmission most often occurs after the bite of an infected animal, by scratching or licking on the excoriated skin or on a mucous membrane, explains the Institut Pasteur website which reminds us that human-to-human contamination is exceptional. If not immediately treated, the patient will begin to have difficulty swallowing (dysphagia) and will develop neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety or agitation, after a few days or months of incubation.
A few hours or a few days after the appearance of the first symptoms, he will fall into a coma then will die most often by respiratory arrest. Indeed, “the outcome is always fatal when the disease is declared”, explains the Institut Pasteur on its site.
The highly recommended rabies vaccine when traveling to the Philippines
However, it is very rare for this to occur in developed countries. According to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the last confirmed cases of rabies contracted by a human in the Norwegian metropolitan territory date back to 1815 and to 1826 for an animal. And if Norwegian law does not impose the vaccine against rabies, its Institute of Public Health strongly recommends it for certain countries including the Philippines where Brigitte Kallestad went.
Because the disease is most prevalent in Asia and Africa (99% of deaths occur on these continents). Also, avoid contact with stray animals as much as possible when traveling in endemic areas. Before a trip to the other side of the world, most doctors also recommend preventive treatment against rabies. The latter is based on a vaccination consisting of three injections separated by several days. They can be carried out by a treating doctor, vaccination or in a rabies center (there are 90 in France) and should then be followed by reminders at one year and then every 5 years.
If you have not been vaccinated preventively, two protocols are validated by the WHO: the so-called Essen protocol, which requires five injections (D0, D3, D7, D14 and D28) and the 2-1-1 protocol or the Zagreb protocol, which requires four injections (2 on D0, 1 on D7 and 1 on D21).
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