"Some scientists visualise a zombie like situation in the world of humans if the rabies and human influenza viruses undergo hybridisation. The rabies virus, when mutated with the influenza virus, will behave like a zombie, with uncontrolled madness. The infected humans too will behave like zombies, according to a National Geographic report. To support its claim, the report says scientists in northern Arizona have found that animals, particularly skunks and foxes, are actually spreading the virus through socialisation, that is, through the aerial route. Just by moving together with an infected animal, a healthy animal may be infected with the air-borne virus, not necessarily through a bite.

“What is unusual is that this new strain of rabies appears to have mutated so that foxes and skunks are now able to pass the virus on to their kin — not just through biting and scratching but through simple socialising, as humans might spread a flu,” says the report in National Geographic News.
In the Indian scenario, wild animals are spreading the rabies virus to domestic animals like dogs. Whether the virus is transmitted from wild animals to stray dogs through bites or socialisation is yet to be studied.

But since the rabies and flu viruses have different genetic make-up, hybridisation between the two is theoretically impossible. But things can go awry when man meddles with natural laws, as he is prone to do. New pathogens and new diseases have evolved in the recent past and what once formed part of science fiction has now become a reality. Let’s hope, such a deadly strain with a combination of rabies and flu traits never becomes a reality."

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