Rabies and lyssa mean madness, frenzy, and rage. Classic rabies is endemic to most of the Americas, Africa, and much of Asia. It is the most widespread lyssavirus in the world. Not surprisingly then, classic rabies is the one we know the most about. All other lyssavirus species are called ‘rabies-like,’ but they should not be assumed to be actual classic rabies. R140 is not rabies, but rabies-like.

 

In rich countries, we sedate rabid humans, strap them down, quarantine them, and try to ease the process. We do not let them run amuck, because we can afford not to.

 

The modern rich countries seem to have a taboo regarding talking about how rabid humans behave. Poor countries of southeast Asia, though, have no such taboo. They also have no vaccine or post-exposure treatment. Further, they lack sedation and five-point strapping down. Some have jail cells inside hospitals specifically for rabid humans in the ‘furious stage,’ it is that common. Nations even poorer don’t have even the cell. Families are expected to tend to patients while in hospital. This is when we really get to see what happens. Free-range rabid humans live up to the ancient names of madness, frenzy, and rage – and seem like the alive, infected zombie movies.

 

Indeed, rabies inspired most of the movies. Some even refer to the virus, such as Quarantine (2008). We’ll see some problems with using rabies, though, later.

 

Massive drooling is a symptom presentation of all lyssaviruses as these are saliva-borne viruses. Phlegm free flows from humans as much as it does from dogs—indeed, sheets of slobber. It starts early with symptoms onset. Later, it can be so excessive that bubbles start, creating foam – that ‘foam at the mouth’ expression you may have heard before referring to madness. Interesting that Stephen King chose a St. Bernard for his rabid Cujo (1983) since it would be hard to tell if that kind of slobbery dog drooled more than usual. How would you know?

 

The book characters familiar with The Lord of the Rings refer to a ‘Gollum-bark.’ In real life, this occurs in both humans and animals. Their throats spaz, producing a sound combining choking with a glottal stop. It is different from a normal choking sound. This spaz grows very bad when trying to drink fluids—the virus prevents the hot viral cells from being washed away. Heard of a rabid dog that doesn’t drink water? That is why. Chris Higgins was blown away by how much a virus can control things even for a human being. Yup. And it gets worse.

 

Humans have the same urge to bite as animals do. But humans cannot spread or transmit any lyssaviruses to other humans. We are a dead-end or spillover species. There is nothing recorded on if a rabid human can bite and infect a dog, though.

 

Remember roommate Rebecca at the library complaining about the healed cat bite on her hand feeling pins and needles? This is one of the earliest symptoms of a lyssavirus. The headache, fever, aching, and generally feeling like shit? Most of the deadliest viruses begin with these flu-like symptoms, including lyssaviruses. She complained about the back of her neck hurting. This is a symptom of viruses that cause encephalitis. Ebola causes the same back of the neck ache. Quite often, humans with rabies are misdiagnosed with plain old encephalitis. It is a pretty generalized diagnosis. The ability to run the RNA has helped with diagnosis, but it's expensive and so far takes too much time for lab processing. The alternative to produce a definitive diagnosis is, well, rather more an end-game point: brain samples. They chop off dogs’ and cats' heads to take the samples. In the movie Quarantine, CDC workers drilled into the heads of alive ‘zoms’ to acquire the samples, a gruesome and technically incorrect scene. Diagnosis of rabies-like viruses is still not perfected. But humans going rabid is so rare in rich countries that things may not progress as fast as they could. Albeit, that does help a fiction writer, doesn’t it?

 

In rich nations, if a rabid human ran down the street, we’d assume the person was on drugs or mentally ill. Nothing really shouts Rabies! to us. We’d call the police and the rabid guy would bite the police as people did in 2012. Still, not saying rabies to us. Screeching, flailing, violent, nope, still not looking like rabies. The whole excited delirium thing doesn’t say rabies to us. We have plenty of mental illnesses and street drugs or combinations of both that cause the same type of behavior. We would never know unless someone of authority told us it was rabies, which would cause tons of people to freak out and fear squirrels would give them rabies.

 

Note: small rodents (squirrels, rats, mice, hamsters) are not vectors of classic rabies. They are spillovers as well. But is this true of all lyssaviruses? Spoiler alert if you haven’t read Holding Ground Part 2, see The Virus That Sounds Like Soda.

 

Why is R-140 not rabies or coming from rabies?

 

Did you know there is a human vaccine? Veterinarians receive this because of their high-risk exposure occupation. You can’t go to the pharmacy for this vaccine, though. To contradict a lot of zombie fiction creators who have used rabies, if there actually was an epidemic of mutated classic rabies erupting among humans, causing civil disobedience, the rich governments would release the human vaccine to the pharmacies and may even legally order citizens to get vaccinated. The outbreak would be quickly contained and the burn stopped—zombie apocalypse over.

 

 

Classic rabies also has limited vectors or spreaders. They are the sharp teeth gang among carnivores and omnivores (e.g., raccoons). RNA genealogy “family tree” studies of the virus show a timeline of the virus mutating to make each species into vectors as it travels to other continents. Did you know rabies does not exist in Britain?

 

 

In the United States and Canada, the most common spreader to infect humans is bats. Since their needle teeth can bite without pain, the humans who have presented rabies symptoms did not know they were bit and therefore did not immediately seek medical care.

 

 

In poor countries, the most common spreader is dogs, and the most common victims are children. The cost of post-exposure shots is too high for these countries and the children die of rabies.

 

 

Like any other virus, lyssaviruses have virulent classifications. Some strains of a lyssavirus may be weaker, while others are stronger.

 

 

Viruses, like contagious bacteria, can change to keep themselves “alive,” so to speak. If too virulent, it will burn through its hosts and cause its own extinction. Weirdly, contagious pathogens can knock back their virulence in order to keep going. This was seen with the bacteria Yersinia pestis—the bacteria that causes Bubonic Plague—when its first outbreak in Europe was so virulent that anywhere from one-third of the population, such as in England, to 60% on the Continent died very quickly. Way too strong. Another pandemic like that could wipe out the host potential. The second wave that hit about twelve years later was not as strong, nor were subsequent outbreaks.

 

 

Dogs are usually resistant to Yersinia pestis, showing symptoms but rarely dying from it. The first pandemic was so virulent that it killed dogs, according to primary source material accounts. The plague ripped through pets and livestock, including cats, pigs, and horses. Whole farms were wiped out. Today’s dogs are resistant to all strains of this bacteria.

 

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Viruses can piggyback on each other. This was how “Ebola Reston,” now known as Reston Virus (RESTV) came to be. It is a combination of Simian hemorrhagic fever (SHF) and Zaire ebolavirus in macaque monkeys kept in a facility in Reston, Virginia, near Washington, DC. Alas, humans are immune to SHF, and the mutation used SHF as its vector mechanism. A bullet was shot and it turned out to be a blank.

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Bactria can play the same tricks. Currently, Yersinia pestis in a Madagascar outbreak proved antibiotic-resistant because it borrowed from E. Coli and Salmonella.

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To obey virology rules in the story series, there must be times when R140 has locally burnt out, making room for healthy hostiles to be the antagonists in the storyline. What happens when R140 has set in so much that it is endemic? It would have to follow the established rules of viruses.