Read the statements carefully & choose the correct option: Statement: i World rabies day is observed on 18 September. Statement: ii Rabies is a fatal but preventable viral disease. Statement: iii The rabies virus infects the autonomic nervous system.

Q: Read the statements carefully & choose the correct option: Statement: i World rabies day is observed on 18 September. Statement: ii Rabies is a fatal but preventable viral disease. Statement: iii The rabies virus infects the autonomic nervous system.

Read the statements carefully & choose the correct option: Statement: i World rabies day is observed on 18 September. Statement: ii Rabies is a fatal but preventable viral disease. Statement: iii The rabies virus infects the autonomic nervous system.

Question

Accepted Answer

The correct option is (4):
This option correctly identifies that only Statement ii is factually correct, while Statements i and iii are incorrect in this context. Statement ii is correct because rabies is a viral disease with a nearly 100% mortality rate once clinical symptoms appear, making it fatal. However, it is also 100% preventable through prompt and proper Post-Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), which includes thorough wound cleaning and administration of the rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin. This balance of being deadly but avoidable is a core public health message. Statements i and iii contain factual inaccuracies regarding the key details of the disease.

The incorrect option is (1):
This option claims that Statement i and Statement ii are correct. While Statement ii is definitively correct, Statement i is factually incorrect. World Rabies Day is not observed on September 18th; it is held annually on **September 28th**. The date of September 28th was chosen specifically to commemorate the death anniversary of Louis Pasteur, the French chemist and microbiologist who developed the first rabies vaccine. Therefore, this option is incorrect because it falsely validates the date mentioned in Statement i.

The incorrect option is (2):
This option suggests that both Statement i and Statement iii are correct, which is false for both claims. As established, Statement i is incorrect because World Rabies Day is on September 28th, not September 18th. Furthermore, Statement iii claims the virus infects the autonomic nervous system. While the rabies virus is a neurotropic virus that does spread centrifugally to the peripheral and autonomic nervous systems (like to the salivary glands) from the brain, its primary target and the cause of the fatal disease is the **Central Nervous System (CNS)**, causing severe brain and spinal cord inflammation (encephalitis and myelitis). Because the primary, defining infection is of the CNS, claiming the ANS is the site of infection is misleading and generally considered an inaccurate summary of the core pathology of the disease in the context of general science questions.

The incorrect option is (3):
This option incorrectly asserts that Statement ii and Statement iii are both correct. While Statement ii is correct (fatal but preventable), Statement iii is incorrect. Again, the primary site of infection and the cause of the disease’s fatality is the Central Nervous System (CNS). The virus travels from the bite site, along the nerves, and multiplies in the brain before spreading to peripheral and autonomic nerves for transmission. The key pathological event that leads to death is the acute viral infection of the brain, not the autonomic nervous system itself. Therefore, pairing the correct statement (ii) with the inaccurate one (iii) makes this option incorrect.