I’m probably just looking for excuses, but I feel like I’m having a hard time writing because I’m spending too much time worrying about getting rabies from a camel.
(Don’t worry. I promise I’m taking this concern with the appropriate level of humor. Or trying to, anyway).
Hear me out, though! The thing about this particular fear is: if I were to be bitten by a dog in Morocco, common sense would dictate that I get rabies shots. Even if it’s a small chance that the dog was rabid. Even if it’s expensive and painful and way less fun than going to a medina or a museum. Most people would agree to class that as a “better safe than sorry” situation.
But if I were to be bitten by a camel, I think the general response would be: huh? Camels don’t tend to carry rabies. What’s that? You have links to articles about a camel rabies epidemic in Sudan? Okay, okay, but we’re in the middle of the desert. It would disrupt everyone’s good time if you decided you needed rabies immunoglobin right now. The chance of this camel having been bitten by a rabid dog is so negligible.
To which everything in me would scream, But the chance of death after contracting rabies is so complete!
*Say what you will about standing up for whatever you think is the right course of action, and I agree in theory, but in practice it’s really difficult to inconvenience people who think that you’re overreacting to an extreme, especially if you know that you do, in fact, have a history of obsessing about disease.
I didn’t get prophylactically vaccinated against rabies before I moved to Thailand and I’m not getting it before I go to Morocco next week, because I don’t think it’s necessary. I managed to live in Bangkok for a year amid tons of street dogs without being bitten, and I’ll definitely do all I can to avoid the pointy mouths of animals when I travel this time…as I do with squirrels and raccoons in my everyday life. Also, getting pre-exposure vaccination doesn’t mean you don’t still have to get rabies shots if you end up getting bitten, and the rabies vaccine is absurdly expensive. (The typhoid vaccine, on the other hand, can be had for two digits and with up to 42% off with a coupon you print out online!)
*See! I’m totally rational and circumspect on this issue.
But I’ll be doing my best to save myself any of these dilemmas by: not getting bitten by a camel.
