Rabies

Rabies is a fatal, acute, progressive encephalomyelitis caused by neurotropic viruses in the family Rhabdoviridae, genus Lyssavirus . Numerous and diverse variants of lyssaviruses are found in a wide variety of animal species throughout the world, all of which may cause fatal human rabies. Rabies virus is by far the most common lyssavirus infection of humans. Tens of millions of potential human exposures and tens of thousands of deaths from rabies virus occur each year.