I’m glad your wife is ok and won’t need to go through the shots.
You mean I’m good against rabies for awhile? Then I’ll go out kitten grabbing again!
Just kidding. I learned my lesson and will never willingly grab an unsuspecting and terrified stray kitten or cat ever again, regardless of how well are my intentions.
Sort of. My understanding is if I’d been up on my vaccine, I would have needed just one booster shot instead of the whole series.
In the use, the difference between treatment if someone has had the vaccine vs not is that a vaccinated person does not get the serum (one of the shots given to people who are exposed but have not vaccine). This already has some anti-rabies antibodies, to kickstart it while the body produces more. It is assumed that, since you already have the vaccine, you at least have a baseline of antibodies circulating around against the rabies virus. Or can quickly produce them.
The vaccinated person still gets boosters of the rabies vaccine, only they may also not get as many of them as the unvaccinated person (ie, doesn’t need the whole series).
I know we all think of rabies in carnivores, but cattle can get it too. Pissed off holsteins or beefmasters, there’s a horror movie in that. A slow moving cinematic masterpiece filled with crazed cud chewing , 4 stomached machines of death…knocking down fences to attack priuses (prii, whatever) and trampling the clueless suburbanites at the farm petting zoo.
Herbivores tend to get the “dumb” form instead of the “angry” form of rabies, although they can be dangerous when they get the “angry” form (trampling, charging).
In fact, the case above I mentioned that was rabies positive, it was from a cow. She had, maybe because of the disease, maybe not, also eaten some foreign body, so she was presenting with some dullness and GI upset. Well no wonder she was a downer cow, she had rabies.
I always just think of mammals when I think of rabies.
Old Yeller caught rabies from a rabid cow (I think her name was Rose).