A woman from Virginia, US died after she contracted rabies while she was on a yoga retreat in India. What’s truly appalling is that she was told that it was only a case of a panic attack when she went to the doctor. The misdiagnosis proved costly for the woman who died soon after. Center of Diseases Prevention and Control (CDC) confirmed that the woman died of rabies. The 65-year-old became the eighth woman in the US to die of rabies since 2008. The Causes, Symptoms and Treatment of This Viral Disease.

According to reports, the woman was on a long vacation in India for a yoga retreat which ran from January 28 to April 5, 2018. Her husband revealed that she was bitten by a dog about six weeks before the rabies symptoms started showing. She experienced extreme anxiety, sleeping problems and shortness of breath. And she sought medical care on May 3, 2018. But the doctors who treated her insisted that they were symptoms of a panic attack and she had nothing to worry about. Her family then revealed to a medical staff that she was bitten on her trip to India. On May 21, she breathed her last after her family decided to stop her treatment.

Since she was living in a commune system, the other residents who shared living space with her were questioned. Three had made direct contact with her saliva, and she bit another. The Piedmont Health District directed them to start treatment immediately. Stop Eating Dog Meat! Vietnam’s Capital City Hanoi Tells Its Residents.

Two hundred and fifty health care workers who were exposed to her were identified by the Thomas Jefferson Health District (TJHD) on May 9 and were asked to start treatment for postexposure prophylaxis. The complete cost of the procedure, which included rabies immunoglobin and rabies vaccine, was borne by the hospitals and TJHD.

What is Rabies?

According to CDC, rabies is a preventable viral disease spread through the bite of an infected animal. The virus is known to attack the nervous system, resulting in symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, confusion and partial paralysis. As the symptoms worsen, the person may experience agitation, hallucination, hypersalivation and hydrophobia.

The virus is transmitted through bites and bodily secretions of infected animals such as dogs, cats, bats, racoons, foxes and other wild animals. The commonest route of infection is the saliva, although other routes such as mucous membranes, aerosol transmission, and corneal and organ transmissions.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 08, 2019 02:24 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).