05/19/2021 10:58 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 05/19/2021 12:05
A 33-year-old woman died of human rabies after being
bitten by a stray cat
in the Buenos Aires town of Coronel Suárez.
This was reported this Wednesday by the Ministry of Health of the Province.
The last death recorded so far in Argentina from rabies had occurred thirteen years ago (in 2008), in the province of Jujuy.
The data was confirmed to
Clarín
by the Ministry of Health of the Nation.
The victim, identified as Zaira Di Giorgio, had consulted a health service on April 18 for
weakness in the upper limbs and
altered sensation
, and in the last days new symptoms appeared and his general state of health worsened.
It was the woman's relatives who pointed out that in March she had been
bitten by a stray cat
and that at that time she did not consult any health professional.
The autopsy carried out in the last hours confirmed that Di Giorgio died of human rabies, a disease that in the Province
it had not caused a fatality
in the past four decades
.
The 33-year-old woman died after being hospitalized for several days at the Coronel Suárez Municipal Hospital.
The deceased woman was a sergeant in the local police and died after being
hospitalized for several days
at the Coronel Suárez Municipal Hospital.
After Di Giorgio's relatives reported the episode with the stray cat, local health authorities sent, on May 6,
cerebrospinal fluid
, saliva and a sample of the woman's skin to the Malbrán institute for analysis.
The result of these studies was
negative
, as reported shortly after by the College of Veterinarians of the Province of Buenos Aires: "On May 10, the Secretary of Health, Dr. Fernando Migliavaca, indicated that the samples sent for diagnosis of rabies by the The suspected human case of Coronel Suarez was negative, both the anti-rabies antibody titration and the RT-PCR, processed at the Luis Pasteur Institute of Zoonosis and at the ANLIS Dr. Carlos Malbrán, respectively, "said the entity a few days ago.
However, the autopsy revealed that the woman died of human rabies.
As the provincial protocol indicates, in Coronel Suárez,
rabies vaccination
was ordered
for animals older than three months within a radius of 500 meters.
The Ministry of Health warned through a statement that human rabies is transmitted through the
saliva of infected animals
, both domestic (mainly dogs and cats) and wild animals (bats, foxes, skunks), and generally the virus enters people through the skin and mucous membranes, from bites or scratches.
The incubation period of the disease is variable and in humans ranges from
less than two weeks to more than a year
, with an average of two to four months.
The rabies virus produces a clinical picture of acute encephalomyelitis.
LGP
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