Yan Jiaxin is a good friend. Leave me a message, say hello and send a message. How long is the incubation period of rabies? Selected 9928 readings: 2011-8-3010: 00 | Personal classification: rabies prevention | Systematic classification: popular science highlights | Keywords: incubation period Rabies laboratory records: Could the incubation period of rabies vaccine in the United States be as long as 40 years? Fifty years? Even longer? Is China going to set the Guinness Book of Records again? In some professional magazines and even textbooks in China, the incubation period of rabies is often described as decades. Are these "cases" in China really rabies? Because there is no laboratory diagnosis basis, or it is impossible to prove that no new infection has occurred recently (for example, through some special or rare ways), these "cases" have not been recognized by international academic circles, and even passed down as jokes internationally, as an example of the low level of related science in China. Who experts believe that only laboratory tests can diagnose rabies, and it is difficult and unreliable to diagnose rabies only through clinical manifestations. In fact, about 30% of rabies patients have atypical symptoms, so the current rabies figures in China are inaccurate and may be seriously underestimated. Domestic and foreign data show that the incubation period of rabies is usually 1-3 months, and the incubation period of a few serious head and face bites may be as short as 7 days, and the incubation period of a few cases (less than 1% of the total) may exceed one year. At present, the longest incubation period of rabies recognized by the international mainstream scientific community is 6 years. American scholars reported this case in a professional magazine in 199 1. The deceased was a Filipino immigrant who never left the United States after immigrating to the United States. Because the probability of rabies infection in the United States is extremely small, and the results of partial gene sequence analysis prove that the rabies virus isolated from the brain of the deceased is the same as the strain prevalent in the country of origin of the deceased, this report proves with the most convincing evidence so far that the incubation period of rabies may be as long as 6 years. Due to the small number of similar cases and the incomplete evidence chain, the relevant academic circles still have objections to the case report. For example, many French researchers I know disagree with this case, thinking that there are still many doubts in this paper, which is difficult to explain in theory, and very few cases may not have universal significance. They think it is extremely rare to be bitten by a dog or cat for more than a year. If you are bitten by a dog or cat for more than a year, you generally don't need to get rabies vaccine, and the possibility of recurrence is very small. They all laughed at the idea of extending the incubation period. For more than ten years, our unit has been paying attention to rabies cases with a long incubation period in China, hoping to have the opportunity to cooperate with any unit or individual in China, take advantage of China's favorable condition that the number of rabies cases is the second in the world every year, find reliable cases with a laboratory basis, break the world record of six years of rabies incubation period, publish weighty academic papers internationally, and enhance China's international position in related research fields. However, for more than ten years, no cases with conclusive evidence and incubation period of more than one year have been found in China. The case with the highest scientific value about the long incubation period of rabies in China is a case reported by Shanghai CDC 1998: a third-year college student may have died of rabies many years ago, and there is laboratory evidence to confirm rabies (virus isolation). It is said that he was bitten by a dog in his hometown when he was less than 10 years old, and he has never been vaccinated against rabies since. However, the medical history of this case is not enough to rule out the possibility of secondary infection. In the key epidemic areas of rabies in southeast China, especially in rural areas, it is difficult to rule out other undiscovered infection opportunities (such as contact with toxic animals in the case of skin laceration) in the near future, and it is still impossible to prove that the incubation period is more than ten years, which can only be regarded as a rare suspicious case.