The first stage is a one- to three-day period characterized by behavioral changes and is known as the prodromal stage. The second is the excitative stage, which lasts three to four days. This stage is often known as "furious rabies" for the tendency of the affected animal to be hyper-reactive to external stimuli and bite at anything near. The third is the paralytic stage and is caused by damage to motor neurons. Incoordination is seen, owing to rear limb paralysis, and drooling and difficulty swallowing is caused by paralysis of facial and throat muscles. Death is usually caused by respiratory arrest. Research
Biotechnological use
The outer shell of the rabies virus, stripped of its RNA contents and thus unable to cause disease, may be used as a vector for the delivery of unrelated genetic material in a research setting. It has the advantage over other pseudotyping methods for gene delivery in that the cell targeting (tissue tropism) is more specific for the central nervous system, a difficult-to-reach site, obviating the need for invasive delivery methods. It is also capable of infecting neighboring "upstream" cells, moving from one cell to axons of the next at synapses, and is thus used for retrograde tracing in neuronal circuits. Potential treatment
Evidence indicates artificially increasing the permeability of the blood–brain barrier, which normally does not allow most immune cells across, promotes viral clearance. See also
Global Alliance for Rabies Control
Rabies in Haiti
Eradication of infectious diseases
Madstone (folklore)

References
Further reading
Pankhurst, Richard. "The history and traditional treatment of rabies in Ethiopia." Medical History 14, no. 4 (1970): 378-389.
If possible, the animal from which the bite was received should also be examined for rabies.Some light microscopy techniques may also be used to diagnose rabies at a tenth of the cost of traditional fluorescence microscopy techniques, allowing identification of the disease in less-developed countries. A test for rabies, known as LN34, is easier to run on a dead animals brain and might help determine who does and does not need post-exposure prevention. The test was developed by the CDC in 2018.The differential diagnosis in a case of suspected human rabies may initially include any cause of encephalitis, in particular infection with viruses such as herpesviruses, enteroviruses, and arboviruses such as West Nile virus. The most important viruses to rule out are herpes simplex virus type one, varicella zoster virus, and (less commonly) enteroviruses, including coxsackieviruses, echoviruses, polioviruses, and human enteroviruses 68 to 71.New causes of viral encephalitis are also possible, as was evidenced by the 1999 outbreak in Malaysia of 300 cases of encephalitis with a mortality rate of 40% caused by Nipah virus, a newly recognized paramyxovirus. Likewise, well-known viruses may be introduced into new locales, as is illustrated by the outbreak of encephalitis due to West Nile virus in the eastern United States. Prevention
Almost all human exposure to rabies was fatal until a vaccine was developed in 1885 by Louis Pasteur and Émile Roux. Their original vaccine was harvested from infected rabbits, from which the virus in the nerve tissue was weakened by allowing it to dry for five to ten days.