Consuming milk (raw) or meat from animals showing rabies signs is discouraged due to potential risks from other pathogens, even if rabies isn’t confirmed in milk. (Representational image/File)
Nearly 200 residents of Piprauli village in Badaun district of Uttar Pradesh got rabies vaccination as a precautionary measure after they discovered that the raita (a whipped curd dish) they consumed at a funeral was made from the milk of a buffalo that died after being bitten by a dog.
The buffalo died on December 26, after which panic spread in the village due to the fear of infection. While there are no confirmed human cases of rabies from drinking milk, it’s considered a theoretical risk, especially with raw, unpasteurised milk from a bitten animal, leading health bodies to strongly advise against it and recommend Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), like vaccination/immune globulin. Pasteurization/boiling effectively kills the virus, making it safe. Consuming milk (raw) or meat from animals showing rabies signs is discouraged due to potential risks from other pathogens, even if rabies isn’t confirmed in milk.
“The virus is primarily spread through saliva or nervous tissue, not blood. Rabies usually spreads via saliva from bites or scratches, or contact with mucous membranes. Rabies is not transmitted through food. There is no reliable scientific documentation of rabies being transmitted through the ingestion of milk or milk products (yogurt/paneer). Therefore, PEP is usually not required for consuming any milk or milk products from rabies infected animals,” says Dr Rajeev Chowdry, Director, Internal Medicine, Yatharth Super Speciality Hospital, Faridabad.
The rabies virus — transmitted through the saliva of infected animals — enters the peripheral nervous system and migrates to the central nervous system (spinal cord and brain). The infected person exhibits behavioural changes and clinical signs when the virus reaches the brain. Clinical signs typically appear three months after a person has been infected. In exceptional cases, clinical signs can develop after a few days, or after more than six months, following an exposure.
It leads to a plethora of symptoms, ranging from common ones such as fever, headache, nausea, vomitting to typical ones such as excessive salivation, fear of drinking water, hallucinations and partial paralysis. While it is almost always fatal after one develops the symptoms, it can be prevented by a post-exposure vaccination. This is the reason people need to take rabies shots when they are bitten, scratched, or salivated on open wounds by animals such as dogs, cats, monkeys, and bats.
If a buffalo has been bitten by a rabid dog, the rabid virus will remain at the site of the bite and the surrounding areas on the peripheral nerve system. The rabies virus will not enter the bloodstream or be secreted in breast milk. In addition, the rabies virus is sensitive to heat and acid, so practices common to the household, such as boiling milk, making yogurt from milk or cooking with it, will inactivate it.
Human cases due to non-bite exposure to rabies are very rare, according to the Global Scientific journal. Scratches, abrasions, open wounds and mucous membranes contaminated with saliva or other potentially infectious material (such as brain tissue) from a rabid animal constitute non-bite exposure. Inhalation of aerosolized rabies virus is also a potential non-bite route of exposure, but other than laboratory workers, most people are unlikely to encounter aerosolized rabies virus.
To alleviate unnecessary anxiety and ensure appropriate risk management of genuine rabies risks, it is important to use the best scientific approach available during times of viral misinformation.