The vaccine is administered in five doses, generally into an arm muscle, over a span of 28 days. Rabies is a viral disease affecting the central nervous system. Once symptoms appear, rabies is almost always fatal. Early symptoms include irritability, headache, fever, and sometimes itching or pain at the site of exposure. The disease eventually progresses to paralysis, spasms of the throat muscles, convulsions, delirium, and death.
Symptoms normally appear between three weeks and eight weeks after exposure.
Fortunately, only a few cases of rabies are reported among people each year in the United States, and there has not been a case of human rabies in New York City in over 50 years.