Rabies Protection

The British Isles have been free of classical rabies for many decades, but because of the existence of the disease elsewhere in the world there is concern about rabies being reintroduced by imported animals. All rabies susceptible animals entering the UK are required to spend six months in quarantine unless arriving under and complying with all the conditions of the pet travel scheme.

There are well prepared contingency plans for dealing with any possible rabies outbreak. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has a national contingency plan. For more information about this please visit the DEFRA website.

The Health Protection Agency also provides advice to health professionals on pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies, and issues rabies vaccine or vaccine and rabies immunoglobulin according to Department of Health recommendations. It also provides advice about suspected human cases of human rabies.  Please see the Health Protection Agency website for more information.

Types and symptoms

Human Rabies: 

Human rabies is acquired from the virus in saliva entering a bite wound caused by an infected animal, usually a rabid dog. The severity of the bite determines the risk of infection. The disease does not usually spread from man to man. 

Animal Rabies:  

This is very similar picture to human rabies.  The animal may bite vigorously and viciously at anything, sticks, stones, grass, other animals and humans without provocation, in a state of excitement.

Wild animals may be abnormally tame or appear sick - beware of approaching or picking up such an animal ("dumb rabies").