After you have booked your holiday, some of the first people you should tell are at your local travel health clinic, as they can advise you on any medications you might need to take, any prescription medicines you cannot take with you on holiday and any vaccinations you may require.
The UK has a robust and highly effective vaccination scheme for preventing diseases that are commonly found in the country from causing serious harm. Still, there are certain diseases only found in certain countries abroad that will require additional protection.
One of these diseases is rabies, a rare but incredibly dangerous infection that can be effectively treated if discovered and diagnosed early but almost always leads to death once symptoms appear.
When do you need a rabies vaccine, how does it help and how common is the disease in the UK?
When Do You Need A Rabies Vaccine?
The UK Government website has a comprehensive list of the risk levels for every country in the world, based on what UK travellers are expected to do, any surveillance systems in place, and which species of animals rabies has been found in.
If you are travelling to any area that is high risk, particularly if you are staying for a long time or in areas where you might come into contact with infected animals some distance from effective medical help, a rabies vaccine will be essential.
This is especially true for aid workers, vets and researchers who might be exposed to the virus, particularly wild bats as they are often carriers of rabies even in countries that are otherwise considered to be low risk.
Finally, people who have been exposed to or have been diagnosed with rabies will need the vaccine, even if they have already been vaccinated, as it forms part of the treatment for rabies exposure.
How Does It Help?
In countries where rabies is considered to be a risk, any wild animal and many domestic animals could be unknowing carriers, and can potentially spread to people if they are bitten, scratched or licked on the nose, mouth or any open wound.
Vaccination helps to reduce the risk of symptoms appearing, makes treatment far easier and ensures that any necessary treatment works far more quickly.
The rabies vaccine is typically treated with additional doses of the vaccine, with a doctor able to determine when or if the exposure you had to a rabies-infected animal was enough to require treatment.
Without the vaccine or with a weakened immune system requires the use of rabies immunoglobulin alongside as many as four additional doses of the vaccine.
Whilst administered after exposure, it is not a cure for rabies. Once symptoms of rabies appear, there is no cure. A study in 2016 found that just 14 people were reported to have survived rabies once symptoms appeared.
This is why rapid treatment is vital, even if you have already been vaccinated; anyone who takes a chance with rabies risks their life.
How Common Is Rabies In The UK?
Many people are aware of rabies through a rather famous series of public information films that warned of the dangers of infection and of smuggling infected animals into the country.
This, alongside the animated Rabies Kills PIF and multiple others in the late 1970s and 1980s raised awareness in the starkest possible way about the potential for a rabies infection and the potential devastation it could cause not only the infected person but people around them.
However, the chances of catching the disease in the UK are almost zero outside of researchers and bat handlers, and even in these instances the chances of progression to symptomatic (and therefore fatal) rabies are practically zero.
The UK has been rabies-free since 1922, with each of the 26 deaths from rabies in the UK having all resulted from people getting infected abroad from infected animals. The last reported case was in 2018 when a person died after being bitten by a cat in Morocco.
The last animal in the UK to have rabies was a quarantined puppy imported from Sri Lanka, and since then the careful quarantine controls and rules surrounding importing animals into the country prevent rabid animals from entering the country undetected and potentially spreading the disease again.
The only animal in the UK that is endemic with a form of rabies-like virus is bats, and a bat handler in Scotland, David McRae, died from infection from European bat 2 lyssavirus in 2003.
However, it is much more difficult for rabies and rabies-like diseases to spread from bats to humans and the general rarity of wild bats in Britain means that it is very unlikely to spread.