why are rabies incurable
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Rabies is caused by a virus that likes to infect your nerve cells.
When the virus gets inside your skin, it travels to the closest nerve cell (or sometimes stays in a muscle cell), and starts using the cell’s own machinery to make more copies of itself. Your cells need that machinery to do their job and keep themselves alive, so infection often disables or kills them. Your immune system also spots that the cells are infected, and that causes inflammation.
Once it’s in a nerve cell, it uses it as a highway to get to your brain, and destroy cells in it. When the virus gets into your nerve cells, there is no preventing it from travelling up them to your brain. Most of the symptoms associated with rabies come from the brain not working properly, so you won’t show symptoms until your brain is already had a lot of damage, and you kind of need your brain in order to stay alive.
Importantly, rabies can be prevented even after an exposure. If you believe you have been exposed (bit or scratched by an unvaccinated mammal), go to your nearest emergency room.
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