Rabies vaccine for animals in Brazil

Rabies is a serious disease caused by a virus. It is mainly present in animals. Humans can get Rabies when they are bitten by infected animals. The most common source of Rabies in the United States are wild animals, especially bats, but it can also be transmitted by skunks, raccoons, dogs, cats, coyotes, foxes and other animals.

It is difficult to know at first because there are no symptoms. But weeks - or months - later, the disease can cause pain, fatigue, fever, headache, lethargy, loss of consciousness, circulatory shock, and irritability. Seizures or epilepsy, autoimmune disease, skin diseases, muscle weakness, chronic digestive disorders, behaviour problems, hallucinations and paralysis indicate the advanced level of Rabies, which is almost always fatal.

But the Rabies vaccine can cause allergy or other side effects, like injection site cancer, soreness, redness, swelling or itching were the shot was given. Nausea, abdominal pain, muscle aches and dizziness, vomiting are also possible. Less common, but still possible, are hives, pain in the joints and fever.

Our female German Shepherd, Jewels, was born in November 2015, and she was four months old when we adopted her. She was very active and playful. We used to take her to the park up the road every day, and she ran around the trees and roll down slopes and occasionally drink water from the pond. Indeed she was very happy. But when we took her to vaccinate against Rabies in the 5th of August, everything changed. I wasn't worried about her, because I thought she was strong enough. I was really worried about Lily, our cat.

But three days after the vaccine, we noticed that Jewels stopped being so playful and active. She barely left her bed. Then she started throwing up, then coughing a lot. We thought she might be with something stuck in her throat. So we took her to the vet, and he examined her. He said she was with 40.6 degrees of fever, wheezing and with an infectious process. He asked us if we had taken her to vaccinate against Rabies. And that's how we knew what had happened.

So we bought all the medicine needed to save Jewels' life. And we had to take her to the clinic almost every day, because she was getting worse and worse. And the last time we took her, a week after we started giving her the medicine, the vet examined her again, and told us she was with the same fever as before. When we got home, we had little hope to hold on to. And on that same day, we left the house for about an hour and a half. The only time we left Jewels alone.

And when we got home, she wasn't in her bed as usual. Instead, she was lying on the garden, stone cold. She didn't look at us like she used to, she wasn't breathing, she didn't budge. We noted she was surrounded by her own urine and a black liquid came out of her. There was foam around her mouth. Her eyes were wide open. Lily was pacing around her. She wasn't mewing for a week, but now she started mewing again. We all knew that Jewels couldn't resist the infectious process that hit her the previous week.