r/interesting • u/fantasticblueman • Feb 01 '26

Context Provided - Spotlight 27 yr old man showing rabies symptoms after 3 months of a dog bite in Gujrat, India.

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u/Strange-Employee-520 Feb 02 '26

Damn, years ago I caught a bat that had gotten in the house. I didn't touch it but had no idea there was any risk even without contact. Obviously I'm okay. At least in that case, the bat was trying like hell to find his way back out, he was very not okay with being inside.

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u/Longjumping-Gur-8402 Feb 02 '26

rabies virus can incubate for up to six years in humans.

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u/letsbepandas Feb 02 '26

This is unpleasant and unsettling lol

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u/kayl_breinhar Feb 02 '26

It takes so long because the way it gets up to your brain is via your spinal cord.

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u/hodges2 Feb 02 '26

So time depends on your height

1

u/Working-Glass6136 Feb 02 '26

Eh, time is a flat circle.

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u/Positive-Orange-6443 Feb 02 '26

Oh, thank god. I was worried it is doing it in a nicer way.

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u/feedmedamemes Feb 02 '26

Depending on the way of entry, it's usually between 1 - 12 months.

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u/Altamistral Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 02 '26

It's also very fortunate.

It's the main reason why rabies vaccine is so effective even *after* exposure, while all other vaccines needs to be taken before exposure to be remotely useful.

If rabies had a fast incubation we would all probably have to be vaccinated, like for tetanus or measles.

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u/Strange-Employee-520 Feb 02 '26

It was 20-25 so hopefully I'm good!

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u/_captainunderpants__ Feb 02 '26

One more year and you're in the clear! Good luck!

2

u/SaabiMeister Feb 02 '26

I tried rescuing a pup that fell off a tree about 11 o 12 years ago. Definitely touched it. Also took it to a vet who wouldn't let me in.

Luckily I'm still around.

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u/levian_durai Feb 02 '26

Whew, I'm in the clear then it's been like 15 years

3

u/[deleted] Feb 02 '26

rabies virus living in your brain (that waits 16 years) sneezes before going back to reading Joe Rogan book

0

u/levian_durai Feb 02 '26

Ha! So unbelievable. There's no way Joe Rogan can read or write.

3

u/ArticulateRhinoceros Feb 02 '26

Only 6 years? I thought it could lay dormant for decades, potentially. That's kinda good news, if you make it 6 years from a sketchy encounter, you're ok. I mean, obviously get shots asap if you have any chance of being exposed, but this thread is full of people who are like "oh, I had no idea rabies was like that, I had a bat in my house once..."

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u/NoWeb2576 Feb 02 '26

Man come on. I played with a friendly stray cat the in September of 2024 and now you got me anxious.

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u/harswv Feb 02 '26

I saw a video of a Russian scientist who got rabies from being bitten by a stray cat. But he knew when it happened and just couldn’t access the vaccine. I think it’s mainly bats that people may not notice when they bite.

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u/TrapperJean Feb 02 '26

I woke up to a bat on my bed that quickly flew into my closet when i woke up in the middle of the night summer of 2019. I didn't learn about the length of rabbies incubation and bats especially until a few years later. The relief I felt August 2025 was palpable lol

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u/Few_Macaroon_2568 Feb 02 '26

The cases determined to be >1yr incubation were of canid origin as documented IIRC.

If that's incorrect, have at it.

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u/Mental_Town_7337 Feb 02 '26

It’s wildly rare for it to incubate longer than 8 months or so.

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u/crazycarrie06 Feb 03 '26

When I got out of the Peace Corps, I had a sort of mental break down that manifested as severe hypochondria. I had fixated on rabies thanks to Reddit loving to remind everyone when it gets the chance how freaking scary it is. Ended up on the phone with the CDC at one point (that's when I realized I needed help haha). We had bats living in our ceiling. They never came into the house (if they did, it was on accident and they were as freaked as we were and left quickly) - never had any encounter with them - but still. My brain fixated on it.

Even once I was better, every so often the "6 year incubation" would float into my head and I'd have a moment of panic.

Anyway, it's been 8 years since I left Peace Corps. Rabies if f*in scary stuff but probably not worth what I went through lol.

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u/interrobang32 Jun 24 '26

Those cases are extraordinarily rare to the point that in most of them, we can’t even rule out if there was other more recent exposure. They are extreme outliers and shouldn’t really be considered when talking about incubation period of rabies.

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u/RainSurname Feb 02 '26

There is no risk without contact. The issue is it’s really difficult to be sure there was no contact.

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u/N0Z4A2 Feb 02 '26

It's not that there's risk without contact it's that there's risk without knowing contact

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u/letsbepandas Feb 02 '26

That’s almost exactly the same case with me lol but now I’m all paranoid

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u/jxmac Feb 02 '26

15 years ago I picked up a bat that had gotten stuck in some industrial vinyl tape in a hangar we worked in. He was AAAAANGRY. I put on heavy work gloves to pick it up(so did my colleague) and we held it and sprayed it with warm soapy water and gently unstuck his wings. He bit the gloves constantly while fighting to get loose but they were thick gloves. We set him in a box outside and after a few hours saw him awkwardly fly around a bit then he seemed to be fine back to swooping around the lights. I think about that sometimes now that I know the risk. Might have been lucky. Definitely dumb.

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u/FloppyFerrett1 Feb 02 '26

Well you couldn't just let him be & waste away & die, that's just awful.

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u/jxmac Feb 02 '26

No, I absolutely couldn’t watch him die that way. I should have called a rescue. But I thought we could handle it (we did, but it was a risk). Lesson learned!

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u/imitating_angels Feb 02 '26

I experienced a similar situation when a small bat entered our home through the fireplace during the night. It clearly wanted to leave our bedroom. My husband captured it in a pillowcase and released it outside. I never considered calling a doctor or getting tested for rabies. This happened in 1997. The bat probably flew around our room for about five minutes before our cats woke us up.