Do rats have rabies?
If a rat has bitten or scratched you, see a doctor or go to an animal bite treatment centre today. They decide whether you need anti-rabies treatment. This page explains what the health authorities say.
What to do today
- Wash the bite at once with soap and water for at least 10 minutes.
- Go to a doctor or an animal bite treatment centre as soon as you can, today, and tell them it was a rat. Get treatment from trained health workers, not a traditional healer.
- Follow what they decide about anti-rabies treatment, a tetanus shot or antibiotics, and go back if a fever or other symptoms start in the weeks after.
Department of Health hospitals run animal bite treatment centres. At the Davao Regional Medical Center, for example, the centre gives post-exposure treatment free to animal bite patients.
The three weeks after a rat bite
So a fever in the three weeks after a bite is a reason to go back to the doctor, and antibiotics can cure rat-bite fever if treatment starts soon after you become sick.
What the health authorities say about rodents and rabies
The World Health Organization, in its position paper on rabies vaccines of April 2018:
“RABV infection in rodents is very uncommon. No human rabies cases due to bites by rodents have been reported.”
RABV is the rabies virus. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in its recommendations of 23 May 2008:
“Small rodents (e.g., squirrels, chipmunks, rats, mice, hamsters, guinea pigs, and gerbils) and lagomorphs (including rabbits and hares) are rarely infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.”
The same document says:
“In all cases involving rodents, the state or local health department should be consulted before a decision is made to initiate postexposure prophylaxis.”
Rare is still a judgement about your bite, and it is made by the people treating you, not by a web page. That is why the first step is the doctor or the bite centre.
The other risks from a rat bite, and from rats
Rabies is not the only question. Rat-bite fever comes from rodent bites and scratches, and from their saliva or urine; its symptoms usually start 3 to 10 days after the contact and can appear up to 21 days after, and antibiotics can cure it if treatment starts soon after you become sick. Leptospirosis comes from rat urine, often in floodwater, entering through cuts or the eyes, nose or mouth. A fever after a rat bite needs a doctor either way.
More on both, in Filipino, is in kagat ng daga, and the rats themselves are in daga.
If rats are in the house
A bite at home means rats close to where people live. Look for droppings and nests with the droppings identifier, and see how to get rid of rats. To have the nest found and dealt with, book a visit through rodent and rat removal. We cover Pampanga, Bulacan, Bataan, Tarlac and Olongapo.
Sources
- World Health Organization, Rabies vaccines: WHO position paper, April 2018 (Weekly Epidemiological Record, No. 16, 20 April 2018), read 26 September 2026
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Human Rabies Prevention, United States, 2008: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (MMWR Vol. 57, No. RR-3, 23 May 2008), read 26 September 2026
- Department of Health, Western Visayas Medical Center, Animal Bite, read 26 September 2026
- Department of Health, Davao Regional Medical Center, Animal Bite Center, read 26 September 2026
- MedlinePlus (US National Library of Medicine), Animal bites: self-care, read 26 September 2026
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, About Rat Bite Fever, read 26 September 2026
- Philippine News Agency, 5 August 2025, reporting Department of Health advice on leptospirosis, read 26 September 2026
Tell us what you have found
Send the pest, the town and roughly how long it has been going on. That is enough for us to say what the treatment would involve and what it depends on.