What are the symptoms of rabies in children?

Nowadays, many families with babies have cats and dogs, and babies also like to play with these small pets. Having a pet can indeed bring joy to the family, relieve stress, and make children more loving and responsible. But from another perspective, there are also some safety risks. Even if pets are bathed regularly, there will still be a lot of bacteria, and they may accidentally injure babies and cause some complications of rabies in children. However, many parents do not understand the symptoms of rabies in children.

Rabies is a very serious infectious disease, so relevant preventive measures must be taken. But what should we do if a child is not careful and contracts rabies? Don’t worry, let me tell you the symptoms of rabies in children.

Symptoms of rabies in children

Incubation period

The incubation period of rabies in children varies in length, ranging from 4 to 7 days to 19 years, but the vast majority of patients are within 1 year.

Factors affecting the incubation period include age (shorter in children), wound site (early onset in the head and face), wound nature (deep bites are shorter), and the number and virulence of the invading virus and host defense mechanism.

Prodromal stage

Most patients have low fever, headache, fatigue, general discomfort, loss of appetite, nausea, irritability, fear and anxiety, and then become sensitive to pain, sound, light, wind and other stimuli, and have a tightness in the throat. The more diagnostically significant early signs are healed wounds, abnormal sensations such as numbness, itching, pain near the wound and in its nerve pathways, and a crawling sensation in the limbs. This phase lasts 2 to 4 days.

Excitement

Children with rabies who are in the excitement period will gradually enter a highly excited state. Their symptoms usually include fear of water, wind, light, extreme terror, difficulty breathing, and even paroxysmal pharyngeal muscle spasms.

Most patients will experience severe spasm of the throat muscles when drinking water, seeing water, hearing the sound of running water, or even hearing the word "water". The children are extremely thirsty but dare not drink water, which often leads to hoarseness and dehydration. Stimuli such as wind, light, and touch can not only cause spasms of the pharyngeal muscles, but in severe attacks can also cause painful convulsions throughout the body and dyspnea, hypoxia, and cyanosis caused by spasms of the respiratory muscles.

Due to the enhanced sympathetic nerve function, profuse sweating, salivation, increased heart rate and high blood pressure may occur. Most children are conscious, but some may experience disorientation, hallucinations, delirium, and mental disorders. This issue is from 1st to 3rd.

Paralysis

The seizures decrease or stop, and the child becomes calmer. The limbs are flaccidly paralyzed, and symptoms of paralysis of the eye muscles, facial muscles, and chewing muscles may also occur. The person may then go into a coma and die quickly from respiratory and circulatory failure. This phase lasts 6 to 18 hours.

The entire course of rabies is about 3 to 5 days, and some may last more than 10 days, but this is very rare. Paralytic cases are extremely rare, as these patients mainly present with high fever and progressive paralysis, and eventually die of exhaustion. The entire course of the disease is less than 10 days, only about 8 to 9 days.

At present, there is no good treatment, and the mortality rate of rabies in children is 100%. Once the baby is injured by a pet, the wound must be cleaned in time, and the baby should be sent to the hospital for treatment immediately, and then vaccinated in stages. It is very important to do a good job of prevention at this time, and all mothers must pay attention to it.