# Why is the rabies virus 100% lethal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 24, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047 "2016-01-24T02:34:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/21 "2016-01-25T14:57:29Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I don’t believe a disease like rabies could exhist without bats. The most common animals to get rabies are foragers like raccoons and foxes. They find a sick bat on the ground and eat it. Once infected the amount of animals they are likley to pass this on to is very limitied and would soon burn itself out in an infected area. Bats are very mobile and are about the only species that could keep reinfecting areas. Reading this post and Colibri’s above makes me curious about the transmission method between bats. Admittedly I know nothing about bats but my impression is that they sleep all day wrapped up in there wings and fly around at night eating insects. Also, I saw on Survivor contestants eating bats in soup. Does cooking them kill the rabies virus? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/22 "2016-01-25T15:12:59Z")
> [@White SIFL](#): > > Reading this post and Colibri’s above makes me curious about the transmission method between bats. Admittedly I know nothing about bats but my impression is that they sleep all day wrapped up in there wings and fly around at night eating insects. During the day they often roost together in caves, attics, hollow trees, etc. There’s plenty of opportunity for a rabid bat to bite others. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/23 "2016-01-25T18:24:37Z")
I Think rabies would be the perfect mechanism to control bat populations. Vampire bats use a somewhat unique grooming behavior usually found in primates. In overcrowded conditions rabies would spread quickly through a bat population. If bats relied on starvation as a population control method it could be disastrous for certain plant species as insect population would soar. This could affect the entire eco system. Bats are probably the most powerful force in insect control. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/24 "2016-01-25T18:37:34Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > I’ve never quite understood this stomach bit. When did they stop requiring these shots to the stomach? I must have been sometime well before 1948 (almost seventy years ago) - I had a series of rabies shots then, and they were just like a flu shot. Daily trips to the doctor’s office for fourteen days of painless shots with no side effects, and then it was finished. The explanation I heard was that the shots created inflammation. If you used the arm, it would become so inflamed that there was no place to inject – plus you probably couldn’t move your arm. The stomach has more surface area, so you can find a location for the entire series. The original Pasteur vaccine was an ordeal; people only went through it because it was their only alternative. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/25 "2016-01-25T18:49:22Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > I Think rabies would be the perfect mechanism to control bat populations. Vampire bats use a somewhat unique grooming behavior usually found in primates. In overcrowded conditions rabies would spread quickly through a bat population. If bats relied on starvation as a population control method it could be disastrous for certain plant species as insect population would soar. This could affect the entire eco system. Bats are probably the most powerful force in insect control. Rabies is already in bat populations, but probably not to such an extent that it’s the major control on their numbers. Rabies is mostly non-lethal in vampire bats.[One study](https://rabiesalliance.org/media/news/explaining-vampire-bat-rabies-persistence)suggested that ninety percent survive infection and become immunized. A friend of mine was recently bitten by vampire bats (on his ears) as he slept in his garden in a hammock here in Panama. He had to go to the US for the vaccine. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/26 "2016-01-25T19:39:58Z")
The “stomach” is an organ of digestion located within the abdominal cavity. Historically, rabies treatment involved injections given into the abdominal area. All this talk of injections being given into the stomach is making me cringe. /pet peeve rant ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/27 "2016-01-25T22:18:34Z")
Would you prefer “belly”? And ebola is highly transmissable from human to human, but only in the right conditions, and those conditions, while common in parts of Africa, are quite rare in the US. The media panic was entirely just that, a panic. America was never at a significant risk. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047/28 "2016-01-25T22:18:56Z")
> [@ricksummon](#): > > Also, I’ve heard that even if you get a preventative rabies vaccine, you still need additional shots if you get bitten, though fewer of them. Why doesn’t the preventative vaccine confer immunity? It may confer immunity, but it is also playing it safe. Just making eeeextra sure your body produced enough antibodies to get rid of all the rabies virus in your organism. In general, the vaccine produces a spike in the production of the desired antibodies (sometimes a booster is needed to produce a better response), and with these, you also get formation of memory cells. These cells remain dormant, but they have the capacity to ramp up production of that specific antibody if encountered. You want enough of them to remain dormant to produce enough antibodies if the disease is encountered again. A reinfection will also cause these memory cells to replicate and create more antibody-producing cells. With the preventive vaccine, you already have a baseline level of memory cells, that once they encounter rabies, can get rid of it. Plus they have the capacity of replicating more of them. Without the preventive vaccine, the extra shots are not vaccines as we know them, but actually pre-formed antibodies. The vaccine is effective but takes some time, so the pre-formed antibodies are used to jump-start the attack while the body makes more cells. In people who already have the vaccine, they already have this baseline, so it is not added. The vaccines are again to get the memory cells to replicate and get more of them. As I said, the idea is to get a lot of anti-rabies antibody created as quickly as possible to combat the disease. If it wasn’t so lethal, perhaps the vaccination protocol for people with the preventive vaccination could be reduced, but again, due to its lethality, people are not to quick to study that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-rabies-virus-100-lethal/744047.md?page=1)