1. Around 60,000 people a year, almost all in Asia or Africa, die from rabies contracted after being bitten by an animal.
2. The vast majority of those deaths result from dog bites.
3. In the USA, there are now only one or two cases of rabies in humans annually, most often transmitted by bites from bats.
4. Pasteur’s vaccine was made from rabid rabbits.
5. In 1897, the UK passed a General Rabies Order that dogs be muzzled in public to prevent rabies.
6. The UK was declared rabies free in 1902, but broke out again in 1918 after First World War servicemen smuggled rabid dogs into the country.
7. The introduction of compulsory quarantine for dogs led to its elimination again by 1922.
8. Hydrophobia (fear of water) is a symptom of rabies and also an old name for the disease.
9. Building the Channel Tunnel in the 1990s led to fears of rabid foxes coming to the UK from France. Defences at both ends of the tunnel stopped this.
10. Serbia is an anagram of rabies as is braise. No other country is an anagram of a fatal disease.
Daily Express :: Life and Style Feed
