[eli5] how do things like rabies only have a near 100% fatality rate once symptoms set in?

Question

If we can treat it before symptoms what different after symptoms start showing?

In: 11

Answer 1

For diseases in general, treating before symptoms often means that the disease hasn’t progressed that much. If someone is showing symptoms, whatever is going on has set in and is having a more severe effect. For rabies, there are a bunch of symptoms that can result in death outside the disease itself, mainly hydrophobia and difficulty swallowing. Those symptoms make it harder to keep the patient alive while being treated independently of how hard they are to treat.