During holidays, many treasure parents will choose to take their children on trips. This can not only increase their knowledge and broaden their horizons, but also relax their body and mind. However, while enjoying the beautiful scenery of nature, they may also suffer from injuries from nature.
During the festival, the number of people attending hospitals near major tourist attractions will rise sharply. Among all kinds of accidental injuries, animal bites are especially dangerous to people’s health.
It is children’s nature to like small animals, but due to lack of prevention awareness and lack of self-protection ability, animal bites have become [invisible killers] that threaten children’s physical and mental health.
During the journey, many kinds of animals may bite adults and children, among which mice, dogs, cats, monkeys and snakes are the more common. Apart from the familiar rabies, poisoning and infection caused by animal bites cannot be ignored.
The danger of being bitten by animals cannot be ignored.
1. Rabies
The main mammals that can spread rabies are some carnivorous mammals, such as dogs, cats, wolves, foxes and even ferrets. Rabies is a dangerous disease with a mortality rate of 100% after the onset of the disease. People are bitten by wild animals or even domestic animals, and their first reaction is to get rabies vaccine.
However, not all animal bites can cause rabies. Reptiles such as lizards, turtles and snakes cannot spread rabies.
As for some rodents such as mice and squirrels, although they can theoretically carry rabies and can also be infected in laboratories, according to a 2007 survey, rabies virus has not been detected in rodents in China. From a global perspective, it is also a very rare case that rodents bite people to cause rabies.
2. Poisoning
Poisoning caused by bite, the most common is snake venom.
Poisonous snakes are only a small number, but the consequences of being bitten by poisonous snakes are very serious. There are three main types of poisonous components in poisonous snakes, namely cytotoxins, neurotoxins and muscle toxins. These toxins directly attack the nervous system and muscle system of organisms, and may also cause respiratory system disorders, muscle paralysis and eventually death.
Therefore, parents who plan to explore dense forests or remote mountains had better know about the common poisonous snakes in the area before entering the mountains and take preventive and protective measures.
3. Tetanus
Animal bites may also lead to tetanus infection, but this itself has little to do with animal bites, mainly due to anaerobic infection deep in the wound. Timely and appropriate medical treatment can effectively prevent tetanus.
What should I do if I am bitten by an animal?
If you or your child are bitten by an animal, the first priority is to remember the appearance of the biting animal, especially the snake. If the animal has been killed on the spot, you should take the animal’s body to see a doctor.
1. Correctly handle snake bites
If you are bitten by a snake, you should completely fix the bitten body part and send it to a doctor immediately.
Treatment measures after medical treatment include cleaning wounds to reduce the risk of infection, symptomatic treatment, and injection of antitoxic serum. If the previous tetanus immunization is insufficient, tetanus vaccine should be vaccinated when discharged from hospital.
It is worth noting that the World Health Organization believes that tourniquets and wound cutting methods, which are widely circulated on the Internet, will actually aggravate the influence of venom and cannot be used as first aid measures.
Tourniquet has a special structure and professional use method. If the user does not master the correct operation method, the result is likely to do more harm than good, and it cannot effectively prevent venom from spreading, but may lead to tissue necrosis. However, the infection risk brought by cutting wounds is relatively high, which may bring troubles to medical treatment.
2. Deal with other wildlife bites
If you are scratched and bitten by a cat, dog, wolf, monkey, etc., the first thing to do is to clean the wound. At least use soapy water and flowing clean water alternately and thoroughly for 15 minutes, then wash the wound with clear water or normal saline, dry it with cotton balls, and disinfect it with iodophor or alcohol.
If the conditions cannot be met in the wild, you can clean the wound with mineral water or tap water on the way to the doctor, and never suck the wound with your mouth.
After arriving at the hospital, the doctor is responsible for wound treatment and injects tetanus vaccine, rabies vaccine or immunoglobulin according to the wound condition.
3. How to vaccinate rabies?
At present, there are two kinds of rabies vaccine injection procedures commonly used in the world:
- Four acupuncture methods: 2 doses were injected on the day of the first injection (day 0), and 1 dose was injected on the 7th and 21st days respectively. Five-needle method: 1 dose each on days 0, 3, 7, 14 and 28.
Since it takes a certain time to vaccinate the whole rabies vaccine, the variety, manufacturer and injection procedure of the vaccine should also be known when the vaccine is injected for the first time.
Immunization procedures used in different countries and regions may be different, and some rabies vaccines cannot be mixed with the two vaccination procedures. It is suggested that the original vaccination procedures can be adhered to.
4. If you are bitten after vaccination, do you need rabies vaccine again?
If the whole course of treatment was completed when rabies vaccine was vaccinated, the antibody level in the body could be maintained for at least one year. Therefore, please refer to the following treatment methods:
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If you are bitten again within half a year, you generally do not need to be vaccinated again.
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If you are bitten within half a year to one year, you should be vaccinated with one dose of vaccine on the 0 th and 3 th day respectively.
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If you are bitten again within 1-3 years, you should be vaccinated with 1 dose of vaccine on the 0, 3 and 7 days respectively.
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For more than 3 years, don’t save it and vaccinate it again.
How to prevent being bitten by animals?
Generally, wild animals are afraid of people, and biting is usually the last choice for animals.
During the trip, parents had better do the following to minimize risks:
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Do it yourself, and at the same time educate children not to take the initiative to tease or stimulate animals, nor to feed wild animals.
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Choose suitable tourist routes and stay away from woods and grass that may be infested by poisonous snakes.
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To be on the safe side, we should also know the geographical location of the nearby hospital.
Responsible Editor: Fu Ting
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