How deep should the wound be in order to get rabies?

Question

i have 2 house cats at home(no anti rabies shots yets). if they lightly scrapped off my skin using their teeth, do i have rabies? what if they scratched me using their claws, do i have rabies? and when i was eating lunch and left the room, they ate my food and left saliva in my food. when i went back and continued eating and finished my meal thats the only time i noticed they did what they did. do i have rabies? and can i have anti-rabies shots even if i didnt have rabies in the first place, will that have any sideeffects?

Answer 1

Ok, where do I start...

Unless one of your cats has rabies, no, you do not have rabies. Please get your cats vaccinated, it seems as if you're a little paranoid (unless you have a resonable suspicion one of them is infected). I wouldn't worry too much unless you really think one of them is infected.

A wound does not have to be deep to get rabies. It's spread by bodily fluids, mainly saliva, contacting mucous membranes or an open wound. Scrathes, bites etc from infected animals carry the risk of rabies, and if the animal is infected you should seek medical attention. Usually, if an animal bites and is thought to have rabies, one of 2 things will happen.

1) The animal will be quarantined either at home or at a vet clinic/animal shelter for a specified period of time (usually 10 days). If the animal is still alive after the quarantine period, you're safe, and the animal is not rabid. If, however, the animl dies, you have a reason to worry. See point 2)

2)If the animal dies during the quarantine period, or if the animal is euthanzed the head will be shopped off and sent in for rabies testing. This is the only way to test for rabies that is accepted most everywhere (for export blood titre tests can be run, but not for diagnostics, usually). If the animal had rabies, you will need to go get the rabies shots, which is a series and is (from what hear) very painful. If you don't get the shots, you will likely contract rabies. If you get rabies, you will die. no questions asked, that's it.

Earlier I said to vaccinate your cats. however, if your cats are thought to be rabid, you have to wait until their quarantine period is up.

You can get a rabies shot without being exposed to rabies, if you wish. It will give you immunity for a period of time (varies), but it will still hurt. My dad had to have rbies shots many, many years ago (30 or so I think) and he still has immunity. Many vets opt to get a rabies shot as prevention. If my insurance covered it, I would get a rabies shot. I've been lucky, bit once in 6 months working at the clinic, and the dog did not have rabies. Many animal control officers are required to get rabies vaccines.

clearing up soe things from other answers:

Rabies can be spread through claws, as cats lick their claws, thus getting saliva on them.

rabies is still a problem in the US. Many people do not vaccinate, even thouh it is the law. Wild animals can easily spread the disease to cats, which then spread it to other species. If rabies was not a threat in the US, then there wouldn't be measures to quarantine animals, etc. Granted, some countries are 100% rabies free (England/Great Britan is, I believe, but not sure...myabe some other European countries too), the US is not one of them, not by a long shot. This is why there is so much red tape when exporting an animal from the US to another country, especially a rabies-free country.

Cat scratch fever is very, very uncommon, as is the bacteria that causes it. It's more likely to get an infection such as staph at the bite/scratch site.

Answer 2

Rabies Wound

Answer 3

You can only be infected with rabies if your cats have been infected. For instance, if your cats are allowed to go outside and they are bitten by a raccoon carrying the rabies virus then they could transfer it to you if they bit you. I think you'd know if your cats had rabies. In 2-6 weeks the virus would move through your cats' system until it reached the brain. Basically it is a fatal virus and your cats would be dead if they were infected. You should take them in and get them vaccinated. It's only once a year, and it would probably cost $40/per cat.

Answer 4

You should be safe, but your should get your cats immunised. Once rabies is there, you can't cure it. Technically, even a small scratch or tiny amount of saliva is enough to infect someone, but the likelihood that your house cats are rabid is almost nil. The rabies treatment has come a long way in the past few years and is just a series of 3 shots. (I have had them) and I did get a bit sick, but not too bad.

Answer 5

Simply breaking the skin makes a person able to get rabies. However, before you start hyper-ventilating, if these 2 are strictly INDOOR cats, #1--the chances of either one of them having rabies is almost ZERO. And, #2--rabies occurs much more often in dogs than in cats. And finally, if the cats just scraped your skin, but did NOT break it, and there was no bleeding, then--NO, you cannot/do not have rabies. Hope this helps.

Answer 6

The cats would have to get it from somewhere first, so if they are indoor-only, and you don't have bats or raccoons in your house, then there's no way they could be exposed to rabies in the first place. It is transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal, either through broken skin or mucous membranes (eyes, mouth). Depth of bite is irrelevant. So yes it's theoretically possible to get it from sharing food, and scraping skin with teeth, but not by a claw scratch.

The symptoms of rabies are pretty obvious: drooling, inability to swallow, fear of water, personality changes, episodes of abnormal behavior that become more frequent and severe with time. If either of your cats have symptoms like that, you need to have them euthanized and tested while you start rabies shots. There's no way to treat rabies, the shots are a vaccine that prevents you from catching the disease in the first place. And the test involves slicing up the brain, so there's no way to do it on a live animal.

Rabies is still out there in the US, particularly in the south and New England states, and cats are far more likely to catch it than dogs, because they hunt and fight. It's alive and well in the raccoon, skunk, and bat populations. I had to cut off the head of a raccoon and send it in for testing not 2 weeks ago ( I work for a vet in the US).

Answer 7

WOW, you are paranoid. Do your cats go outside at all?? Why don't they have a rabies shot? IF a cat had rabies, you could very well get rabies from a light scratch.

If you think your cats have rabies... Then you should seek medical attention immediately. Take the cats w/ you, they will want to see them. They will be quarantined to make sure that they don't have rabies, and in the meantime they will begin to treat you.
Get the rabies shots for the cats next time, then you won't have to worry.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/rabies/ques&ans/q&a.htm

Answer 8

Just because the cats do not have their rabies shots doesn't mean they have rabies. You are aware of this correct? They must contact the virus through another rabid animal, they don't just catch it out of thin air.

First, you should seriously get your cats their rabies shots, especially if they go outdoors frequently.

If your cats have been exposed to a rabid animal, or have been bitten or scratched by another animal, you should take them to your local vet to get checked out. If they in fact have the virus, you should seek medical attention if you were bitten by them.

Answer 9

If you are really worried about your cats having rabies, take them both to the vet for a rabies test. Show the vet the bite you got and let him tell you what to do.

Answer 10

Thats all they would have to do is break the skin. I doubt you have rabies. If they are house cats meaning they don't go outside they have no way of catching rabies