You have been scratched by a monkey and are bleeding and the monkey’s vaccination history is unknown, so you need to be vaccinated against rabies as soon as possible. The reason is that medical research shows that monkeys also carry rabies viruses, pathogens that exist in the animal’s saliva, and can be transmitted to humans through scratches. People traveling in the wild have a higher risk of being scratched or bitten by monkeys when teasing and agitating the animal.
You should go to vaccination sites as soon as possible so that the doctor can examine the wound directly. You may need to be vaccinated against rabies, tetanus or anti-rabies serum. You should not wait to monitor the monkey’s health because you will miss the golden time for vaccine treatment. On the other hand, monitoring the condition of wild monkeys is difficult.
Regarding the regimen, you need to get 5 injections in 28 days, on days 0-3-7-14-28 respectively. If the wound is open, severe, appears in the head, face and neck area, or the animal cannot be monitored, you must use additional serum to create antibodies as quickly as possible. In case you have received all rabies shots or rabies prophylaxis, you only need two more shots of vaccine and do not need serum.
Wild monkeys can carry rabies virus. Image: Chile
Rabies is an acute encephalomyelitis disease caused by a virus, transmitted from animals to humans mainly through bites and scratches. When the disease begins, the mortality rate is nearly 100%.
High-risk people who have frequent contact with animals should get three shots. This has many benefits such as reducing the number of injections in animal attacks; Avoid the risk of side effects when using anti-rabies serum. Currently, vaccination centers have new generation vaccines that do not contain nerve cells, so they do not affect human health and memory.