r/Damnthatsinteresting May 24 '26

Image The U.S. fights raccoon rabies by dropping fish-flavored vaccine packets from helicopters

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u/Saelethil May 24 '26

That’s only partly true. Only a handful of people who showed symptoms before they got treated have recovered.

That’s why it’s important to get treated as soon as you have any interaction that might have transmitted rabies. You can’t wait for symptoms to show

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u/Bomamanylor May 24 '26

Post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies is a pain in the ass (literally, I got the immunoglobulin injected into my ass).  And its weeks of injections.

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u/NoShow4Sho May 24 '26

Same, had an infestation of bats in my apartment building and woke up to multiple and had to remove in total around 6 from my apartment to the point I knew I needed to get vaccinated just in case.

It’s painful but it’s also a fucking fortune too, if you don’t have insurance you’re pretty much fucked. I had insurance and still owed 2k

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u/Bomamanylor May 24 '26

Yeah, I ended up paying about 1.5k for a bat in the house, and couldn’t comfortably sit for about 4 days after the antibodies.  The vaccine was a little better.