ACKNOWLEDEGMENT

I have taken efforts in this project however it would not have been possible without the kind support
and help of many individuals.

I would like to thank my principal Mrs. JYOTI KAKRIA and my school for providing me the facilities to
do the project.

I am highly indebted to my biology teacher Mrs. ARPITA DEV,for her invaluable guidance, which has
sustained my efforts throughout the project.

I would also like to thank my parents for their Continuous support and encouragement.

My thanks and appreciation also go to those who have willingly helped me out with their abilities.

Introduction
In the 1970s, thousands of chicken heads rained from the sky in Europe, making foxes and other
wildlife confused and very happy.

But why?

They were filled with a vaccine to fight the deadliest virus known to humanity. Since the 1930s, a
rabies epidemic had been sweeping across wildlife populations in Europe, and humans wanted to
finally get rid of the virus once and for all.

Rabies is named after Lyssa, the ancient Greek spirit of mad rage, and has been haunting us for at
least 4,000 years. It can turn animals into angry beasts and humans into zombies that fear water.

But what makes Lyssa fascinating is not just how bizarre and deadly its infection is, but also how
incredibly good it is at avoiding our defences.
Viruses exist on the edge between life and death, hardly more than a few genetic instructions that
need living cells to multiply.

The Lyssavirus is simple, even for a virus. It has only five genes, that is, the instructions for five
proteins that let it solve complex problems: infect a mammal, avoid its immune system, travel to its
brain, make more of itself, and infect new hosts.

Theory
Let's see what happens if you get infected.

It all starts with a bite, most likely by a dog carrying millions of viruses in its saliva, pushing them
deep into the tissue.

The goal is your nerve cells, your neurons. They are living electrochemical wires, transferring signals
throughout your body, and can stretch for up to one and a half meters, with their cellular machinery
on one end and a terminal on the other.

The terminal is where cells talk to each other by passing chemicals that convey information. a
probably binds to the receptors that are crucial for this process and slips inside the unsuspecting
nerve cells.

Inside, the virus has to solve a big problem: it needs to get to the cellular machinery to take over the
cell and make more viruses, and because neurons are pretty long, this can be far away.

There is a solution at hand though: cells have microtubules spanning their insides that give them
structural integrity, but they also provide a track system for a specialized delivery system: dynein
motors. Dynein motors are actual motors that use energy and deliver packages. They're made from
50 different proteins, 10 times more than the virus, and look like a little pair of shoes.

Lyssa uses one of its five proteins to hijack this amazing system and order it to head for the nucleus.
What's the immune system doing to prevent all of that?

Well, unfortunately, not much. Usually when a virus attacks, your civilian cells are crucial in activating
your immune response. They notice that they've been infected and release hundreds of thousands of
a special family of proteins, the interferons, that well, interfere with viruses.

We'll have to simplify a lot, but in a nutshell, interferons alert your immune system to make antivirus
weapons. But they do much more; they tell civilian cells to turn down their protein factories for a
while, which means the viruses can't replicate efficiently anymore.

And interferons tell your cells to become super transparent, which is important because how can
your immune cells notice that your civilian cells are infected when viruses hide inside them?

Your body solves this by creating display windows into their insides, called MHC class 1 molecules.
Cells constantly produce stuff to stay alive and to showcase to your immune cells what's going on
inside them. They take random samples of their products and put them into these tiny display
windows to give a peek inside.

Interferons tell your cells to make way more display windows and become super transparent.

If a cell is infected and forced to make virus parts, your immune cells will see these parts in a window
and order the infected cell to kill itself and all the viruses trapped within.

This is one of the most powerful methods of wiping out a viral infection.
Unfortunately, Lyssa blocks your neurons from making interferons and stays basically invisible to your
immune system. In contrast to many other viruses, when it replicates, it doesn't kill its host, which
would also trigger alarm systems.

Instead, it stealthily jumps from neuron to neuron, very slowly making its way to your brain.

This phase can take weeks to months, and very rarely even years, and depends on a bunch of things,
like if the bite was in your face or foot, or how many viruses got into your muscles.

Lyssa is a patient monster until it reaches its goal: your brain.

Finally, the immune system catches on that something isn't right and reacts. It dispatches some of
your most powerful antivirus cells, killer T cells, to seek and kill infected cells and wipe out the
enemy.

In other viral infections, this would be a turning point, but in rabies, the T cells are rushing towards
their doom.

Simple Lyssa, with its five proteins, plays a reverse card, using the immune system's ingenuity against
itself.

Your central nervous system is a very fragile part of your body, and so the immune system has to be
very careful. A few haywire immune cells in your brain is a quick way to die.
So they aren't free to enter your nervous system, they have to be invited in and can be kicked out.

To protect themselves, your nerve cells can order T-cells to self-destruct if they think they're
overreacting, and Lyssa figured out a way to make infected neurons express this order.

So as your powerful defence cells arrive, they are ordered to commit suicide.

Now the virus infiltrates the stem. Once this stage is reached, you are going to die.

How Lyssa kills:

One of the most irritating things about the Lyssavirus is that we still don't know exactly how and why
an infected person dies.

Our usual idea of viruses causing damage is by multiplying rapidly, killing their host cells once they've
made enough copies, triggering a massive immune reaction that also does a lot of damage.

But this doesn't seem to be what happens here.

Brain tissue of rabies patients shows minimal, sometimes non-existent, damage.

Instead of murdering everything in sight, it's currently thought that Lyssa wreaks havoc by messing
up the neuron communication inside your brain so much, so that it can't function anymore.

This leads to symptoms like confusion, aggression, and paralysis.

Now the virus begins to leave, still traveling through neurons it migrates away from the brain and
heads for the salivary glands. This is remarkable, because after traveling in one direction the virus
reverses its course.

After decades of study, we don't know how this works.

Lyssa ends up saturating your saliva ready for the irate mammal to bite another and repeat the cycle.
While this seems like the beginning of a Zombie outbreak, luckily there are no known cases of a
human biting another and spreading rabies this way.

Now the end is near.

You are rapidly developing encephalitis, a swelling of the brain with many unpleasant neurological
symptoms from lethargy to paralysis. Slowly at first, and then suddenly, organ after organ fails as you
slip into a coma.

There is no known effective therapy, barely anyone has ever survived Lyssa once symptoms begin to
show. It is by far the deadliest virus we know.

Except there is actually something that could save you- a vaccine.

Rabies was one of the first diseases humans developed a vaccine for.

As vaccines do, it prepares your immune system for a future attack, so it has the right weapons ready
in high numbers. The horrific tricks of simple Lyssa don't work once you are vaccinated and.

The vaccine is special for another reason- because Lyssa is so slow in the first few weeks, it can be
given to you after you've been exposed so you can still be vaccinated after you've been bitten by an
animal. Which is super important if you've had contact with a sick wild animal, say a bat, because
you often don't even notice a bite from tiny teeth.

Rabies is a monster. One that has followed our species around for thousands of years that our
ancestors were terrified of and rightly so.

It still kills around 60,000 people each year almost half of them are children.

We are far from eradicating this monster- it lurks in the shadows in forests, and animals of all kinds,
ready to return in greater numbers if we ever forget how to keep it at bay, or if we continue the trend
of being suspicious of vaccines.

Let’s hope that one day humanity slays this monster, so it can become like most monsters part of our
imagination.

Symptoms
The first symptoms of rabies may be similar to the flu, including weakness or discomfort, fever, or
headache. There also may be discomfort, prickling, or an itching sensation at the site of the bite.
These symptoms may last for days.
Symptoms then progress to cerebral dysfunction, anxiety, confusion, and agitation. As the disease
progresses, the person may experience delirium, abnormal behaviour, hallucinations, hydrophobia
(fear of water), and insomnia. The acute period of disease typically ends after 2 to 10 days. Once
clinical signs of rabies appear, the disease is nearly always fatal, and treatment is typically
supportive. Less than 20 cases of human survival from clinical rabies have been documented.

Prevention
 Vaccination of pets.
 Vaccination for those who are at risk of infection like veterinarians.
 Avoid approaching wild animals.
 Get vaccinated when traveling to countries where rabies is common.

Treatment
Once a person is exposed to the virus, immediate treatment involves the administration of post-
exposure rabies shots. This includes:
 A fast-acting shot to prevent the virus from infecting you. This is given as soon as
possible after the bite if you haven’t had the rabies vaccine.
 A series of rabies vaccinations to help your body learn to identify and fight the rabies
virus. Rabies vaccinations are given as injections in your arm. If you haven’t
 previously had the rabies vaccines, you’ll receive four injections over 14 days. If you
have had the rabies vaccine, you’ll have two injections over the first three days.
Important Note: Once the signs and symptoms of rabies manifest, no effective treatment is
available. Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear

Disadvantages
It has no advantages.
Some disadvantages are as follows :-
 Fatality: Once clinical symptoms appear, rabies is virtually 100% fatal.
 Transmission and Risk Factors: Rabies spreads primarily through bites from infected animals
 Economic Burden: Globally, the economic burden of dog-mediated rabies is estimated
at US$ 8.6 billion per year.
 Limited Access to Treatment: Although effective human vaccines and immunoglobulins exist
for rabies, they are often not readily available or accessible to those in need.

BIBILOGRAPHY
 "Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus" by Bill Wasik and Monica
Murphy
 "Rabies: Scientific Basis of the Disease and Its Management" by Alan C. Jackson and William
H. Wunner
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5I8GYB79Y
 https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/symptoms/index.html
 https://chatgpt.com