Rabies (Latin: rabies, "madness, rage, fury" also "hydrophobia") is a viral zoonotic neuroinvasive disease that causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) in mammals. In non-vaccinated humans, rabies is more or less invariably fatal after neurological symptoms have developed, but timely post-exposure vaccination may put off the virus from progressing. There are only six known cases of a person surviving symptomatic rabies, and only one known case of survival in which the patient received no rabies-specific treatment either before or after illness onset.
