Insect Bites - Animal Bites causes infections and diseases

Insect Bites

An insect bite produces a small puncture in the skin, and infection may be introduced when the insect carries organisms in its mouth or excrement. Tick fever, or Rocky Mountain spotted fever, which is similar to European typhus fever, is transmitted by the bites of ticks. In Mexico and southern United States, a type more closely related to European typhus is transmitted by lice, ticks, and mites living on rats. 

Malaria and yellow fever are carried by certain mosquitoes. While most of the United States is free of malaria, in parts of the South it has not yet been eliminated completely through destruction of mosquitoes chemically or elimination of stagnant ponds and other places where the mosquitoes breed. If you live in or visit such areas where malaria may be a threat, protect yourself against mosquitoes with a repellent salve, make certain that screening is adequate, and if necessary use mosquito netting over the bed at night. 

You can be immunized against yellow fever, and although the disease has been eliminated in much of the world, immunization is worthwhile if, for example, you travel to parts of South America or Africa which are near jungles where the yellow fever mosquito still flourishes.

 Animal Bites

Any animal bite that penetrates the skin should be thoroughly washed with soap and water and treated by a physician. Rabies, or hydrophobia, a viral disease affecting brain and nervous system, is transmitted by the bite of dogs and other domestic and wild animals harboring the virus in saliva. If possible, a biting dog should be caught and studied by the health department.

 If the dog is infected, or if it dies within 10 to 14 days, the bitten person must receive Pasteur treatment or the new serum to prevent rabies, which is a 100 percent fatal disease. If the bite is on the head, neck, or face, treatment should be started at once, without waiting to see if the dog dies, since the virus, when introduced at these sites, can reach the brain quickly.

The rabies virus travels along nerves to the brain, so the farther away the bite the longer the trip to the brain. In bites on the foot, it has taken as long as a year for rabies to develop. Unless the dog is caught and found to be free from the disease, Pasteur treatment or the new serum must be given. All warm-blooded pets-cats, dogs, monkeys-now can be vaccinated periodically against rabies by a veterinarian. 

No pet owner should neglect this precautionary measure. If a dog must be shot because of viciousness, it should be shot in the body so the undamaged brain can be studied in a health department or police laboratory. Any dog that is acting queerly should be examined by a veterinarian.