This will likely get me negative karma (whatever that is) but this is the only way I know how to post here as a new member and my question is one of immediate life and death which I think trhe Less Wrong Community can guide me on.

From a Bayesian perspective should I get rabies shots after having been bitten by a cat in Turkey?

There's some chance that getting the shots could be detrimental (hospitals everywhere have detrimental likelihoods, in Turkey all trhe more so) and there's almost no chance at all that I actually got rabies. If I did get it, I will die, horribly and soon. But, the eay I see it, if my chances of having gotten rabies are less than 1/300,000 it isn't worth the aggravation of getting the lengthy series of shots even if there was no potential downside to getting the shots. Due to the fact that there ARE potential downsides to getting the shots I would not get them if the odds of my having contracted rabies are less than 1/80,000.

Here are the details.

I accidentally stepped on a stray cat's tail 3 days ago and it jumped up and bit and scrtached me through my pants, breaking skin at each location.

So, this was a cat, it was provoked, but it was in Istanbul where apparently many ferral dogs and cats have rabies (I don't know how to define "many"). Also, it bit me on the knee, most cases of rabies involve people bitten on the head or upper extremities.

The two most relevant artricles I found are http://journals.tubitak.gov.tr/medical/issues/sag-09-39-4/sag-39-4-14-0901-6.pdf

and http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971205001840

Being too close to the thing, my own Bayesian thinking can't be trusted but I'm leaning toward saying that the odds that I contracted rabies are too slight to worry about and to expend resoiurces and risks for. But what do you guys thing? From an approximately Bayesian perspective.

marcstone

marcstone