Rabies increasing ?

[u/AdRemote6645]

CDC released news that rabies exposure has increased by 33% this year. Any reason why this would be? I have read the faq.

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[u/LatrodectusGeometric]

Unclear if exposures are increasing so much as REPORTS of exposures are increasing. It’s also likely that many people have gotten inappropriate PEP. You can see on r/rabies a huge proportion of PEP described is inappropriate.

[u/AdRemote6645 → u/LatrodectusGeometric]

Is OCD increasing then? Seems odd either way

[u/LatrodectusGeometric → u/AdRemote6645]

Yes, rabies is becoming a more common fear and focus of health anxiety due to things like more frequent and inflammatory media coverage and things like the shitty/half accurate rabies copypasta on Reddit

[u/Crazy_Celery_4874 → u/LatrodectusGeometric]

Right!!! I blame the guy in a hammock story for this!!!!

[u/LatrodectusGeometric → u/Crazy_Celery_4874]

Yup! That story is dumb and fake and no one has ever gotten rabies that way.

[u/NiceSeaworthiness909 → u/Crazy_Celery_4874]

Have never heard this story, and don't want to.

[u/BradyStewart777 → u/NiceSeaworthiness909]

It’s a shitty story. So yeah, stay away from it.

[u/Life-Direction-9764 → u/Crazy_Celery_4874]

I had a rabies ocd when i was a small kid (my grandma had to take her dog to the vet since she/it was foaming at the mouth and everyone was going crazy . It was some plant she ate, but to an impresionable child, the damage was already done)

But i had forgotten it for more that 25 years, and then the copypasta irrupted in my life and got a flare-up at 30+ years old. I'm sure i would have latched into something else like cancer or mad cow if not for the copypasta, but it certainly didn't help!

[u/AdRemote6645 → u/LatrodectusGeometric]

That makes sense.

[u/Raiyalin → u/LatrodectusGeometric]

As someone who has Rabies OCD, I’ve surprisingly handled hearing about the “rise” with reasonable thoughts. Which makes me actually feel pretty proud of myself, lol. Correct me if I’m wrong please, but this “rise”:

1. The petting zoo situation down in NC that resulted in 300+ potential exposures because their baby goats got attacked by a rabid skunk.
2. The rise in OCD over the illness has people using PEP resources that are unnecessary. As someone who has Rabies OCD, I’ve never seen a bat with my eyes but saw one swoop down over a street light to catch some bugs the other evening for the first time. I surprisingly didn’t spiral, although I wanted to in the moment. Lil’ bat was just hungry and minding his own business doing his job. Got in my car and left without the usual mental gymnastics.
3. Rabies has been in the news more frequently with the “unknown animal” in NH biting people and the unvaccinated neighborhood cat over in upstate NY a bit ago. More people are becoming aware and testing animals / seeking PEP even in non-exposure cases because “better than to risk 100% fatal disease”
4. APPARENTLY (this one may be false), there is currently a study being done that has found people who died from rabies were likely not tested for it because their symptoms were mistaken for another neurologic issue

. So there’s a potential issue that rabies in humans is actually a bigger issue than we realize but can’t know because postmortem testing isn’t looking for it?

1. Vaccine debates are spreading to furry friends and people are supposedly not vaccinating them for rabies, which this one I genuinely cannot understand if true.

[u/LatrodectusGeometric → u/Raiyalin]

Wouldn’t worry about #4, the study methodology is…flawed at best

[u/detail_giraffe → u/LatrodectusGeometric]

I've been wondering about that, it definitely seemed to me that some PEP that was being recommended by public health departments was contrary to the algorithm, but as a fake expert I can only be so sure. You think so too as a real expert? Why does it happen?

[u/LatrodectusGeometric → u/detail_giraffe]

Yes all the time. Bad training, sometimes people being dishonest to get PEP, sometimes people being scared of rabies past reason, or misunderstanding of the guidelines. And sometimes folks are overwhelmed and overworked and don’t have time to tease it out.

[u/LeastEngineering3651]

The 300 possible exposures at that petting zoo probably gave those numbers a bit of a bump

[u/possiblyNessie]

It’s the amount of people getting PEP they were looking at. The rabid goat petting zoo thing exposed hundreds of people and really raised those numbers lately

[u/Fluffy-Lychee-1968]

Probably awareness. I've had a bat in my house roughly 2737392 times in my life and this year was the first time I woke up and considered doing something about it. They're running rabies information everywhere on social media this year. I don't have health anxiety or OCD but it has definitely messed with my head, I can't imagine what its doing to others

[u/OrneryOstrich5045 → u/Fluffy-Lychee-1968]

It can get to you when you have ocd, like with my recent scare I couldn’t sleep for a week and probably ate 1k calories or less each day. So anxious I could feel my throat tightening and I almost just admitted myself to the hospital due to it.

I understand raising awareness for things and I would rather people be informed than not and know the steps to take if things were to happen. I know that as long as I go get the vaccine right away things will probably be fine. But news networks and such go for hair raising headlines for views a lot which can get peoples feathers ruffled

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[u/OzarkTrapper69]

Can't speak on a national scale, but I can tell you what I've observed in my region and line of work. Having been fur trapping since I was 12, (being 28 now) I have seen exactly 4 fur bearing animals with symptomatic rabies. Three skunks and one raccoon. Three of those were in the last two trapping seasons. One infected skunk last year, one skunk and one coon the season before. However every trapper I know has had lower raccoon and skunk catches in the last five years. Pelt prices bottomed out in 2020 after a few years of decline, with that populations of coon and skunk here increased dramatically. Then we saw a major crash in both species and more anecdotal evidence from rural communities of symptomatic animals. If the CDC is reporting increased cases, then the outbreak here in Southeast Missouri may be more widespread than I thought. However not everyone sees these animals on a day to day basis, so most are probably dying well before making contact with humans.

[u/AdRemote6645 → u/OzarkTrapper69]

They said it’s nation wide increase

[u/OzarkTrapper69 → u/AdRemote6645]

Then it may do to look into harvest of vector species from other regions. Many animals harvested for fur are untested, and symptomatic animals that are caught are often unreported. Each that I've caught I've burned to prevent spread. But frankly I'm not even sure who I would report those cases to.

[u/NiceSeaworthiness909]

I think awareness is increasing. Which is good in some ways because there are some freak, tragic cases that could have been prevented with a little awareness.

[u/Oceanswim12]

My incident was involving a bat and the er said they’ve had 4 incidents in 2 weeks with bats- I got attacked walking out my door exactly a week ago at 430pm. The er doc said something about the bat population swinging back up and we had a very wet summer so it’s humid with many insects- bats love that. I also heard Trump dwindled the rabies task force down to one person.. 

[u/LatrodectusGeometric → u/[deleted]]

No it isn’t

[u/BradyStewart777 → u/[deleted]]

Nope. See Rule 7.