Once symptoms of the disease develop, rabies is fatal to both animals and humans. In both furious and dumb rabies, paralysis eventually progresses to complete paralysis followed by coma and death in all cases, usually due to respiratory failure.
Death occurs during the first seven days of illness without intensive care.
Incidence Reliable data on rabies are scarce in many areas of the globe, making it difficult to assess its full impact on human and animal health. An estimated 10 million people receive post-exposure treatments each year after being exposed to rabies suspect animals. Since 1990 rabies in wildlife has been eliminated in some Western European countries that have conducted oral vaccination campaigns. With the help of this technique rabies could eventually be totally eliminated from its terrestrial reservoirs in Western Europe. Oral vaccination programs for dogs have been or are in the process of being evaluated in a few developing countries where canine rabies is endemic.