Baby raccoons are very cute and anyone sometimes wants to adopt them and keep them. But because of this case, those of you who wish to save or adopt a baby raccoon now have to be careful.
This incident happened to a woman in Colorado who rescued a baby raccoon and was found to have rabies. However, it is very sad now that he and a dozen other friends who came to his place to see this baby raccoon now also have rabies, and they need rabies medicine.
A Baby Raccoon and Rabies
A baby raccoon was found by a woman who lives in Weld County (north of Denver) and she took it home. At first this baby raccoon was left by its mother in that place, and the woman felt love and wanted to treat it.
His friends who heard that he found a baby raccoon, they flocked to his place to see the baby. They were 20 people who heard this information, came to her house to see the cute baby raccoon, and the baby had rabies.
“Raccoons are baby wild animals, so there are a lot of people who want to see these baby animals at home”, Rachel Freeman, the department’s health communication supervisor, told the Greeley Tribune. Quoted from livescience.com.
The woman contacted the local department for baby animals, whether they could pick them up or adopt them. However, those at the animal shelter could not take it. Instead, those at the animal shelter contacted the health department to do a rabies test.
After the test, it was discovered that the baby raccoon was positive for rabies. This means that many other people who come to the baby raccoon must also be tested to find out whether they have been exposed to rabies or not. It turned out to be true, the 21 people who visited the baby raccoon had to get rabies treatment. Officials said it was the largest recorded case of rabies exposure in Weld County.
Dr. Mark Wallace, director of the county’s health department, said it was very important for everyone not to approach wild animals or baby wild animals such as the baby raccoon.
From the other side, we see that the mother does not want to take it anymore, even though it could be that the mother is not approaching because we humans are approaching her child. So, even though we see the raccoon’s child as an orphan, it is not.
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What is Rabies?
We need to know what is rabies? Rabies is a disease that occurs due to a viral infection that attacks the central nervous system. This disease is usually spread through the bite of an infected animal.
Rabies is a disease that can cause swelling of the brain and spinal cord. If you don’t get the right treatment, this disease can be fatal.
Those of you who have been exposed to rabies, stay calm because the disease can be treated with “post-exposure prophylaxis,” this involves giving the rabies vaccine for everything before symptoms develop. This type of rabies treatment is only effective if the vaccine is given to all before symptoms begin. Thus mentioned by Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease physician and a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
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That’s a bit of information about a woman who adopted a baby raccoon without considering the consequences. Even though baby wild animals or their mothers are very dangerous because various diseases have the potential to exist in them.
