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Rabies Reminder

Posted by North Shore Health Department on July 23, 2008

Communicable Disease, Environmental Health

State health officials are reminding all Wisconsin residents to use caution around wild animals to protect against rabies, a viral disease transmitted by bites from infected animals.  Bats and skunks are the most likely to carry the rabies virus, but dogs, cats, raccoons, and foxes can also transmit the disease.

The best method of prevention is to use caution around unfamiliar animals -- domestic or wild.  If you are bitten by an animal, wash the wound immediately with plenty of soap and water.  Contact your physician and local health department to report the bite.  If you can do so safely, capture and confine the animal so it can be tested for rabies.  Oftentimes, the animal is turned loose or destroyed and cannot be tested.  In such a situation, the person who was bitten (or exposed if young children are involved) must undergo anti-rabies shots which is a series of five shots plus one immune globulin shot at the time of the bite.  If the animal is available for testing or observation, no anti-rabies treatment is needed in the majority of cases.  However, since rabies is usually a fatal disease (there is only one known human survivor), it is not worth the risk of assuming the animal does not have rabies and treatment is not needed.  Every animal bite by an unfamiliar animal should be followed up appropriately.

To help avoid possible exposure to rabies:

• Avoid contact with wild animals.  Do not try to nurse a sick animal back to health.  Call an animal control official or a wildlife rehabilitator if you find a sick animal.
• Never touch unfamiliar or wild animals and teach children to do the same.  Stray cats and dogs may not be accustomed to being handled and are more likely to bite.
• Never adopt wild animals or bring them into your home.  Even baby animals can carry rabies.
• Walk your dog on a leash and do not let it roam freely where wild animals may be present.
• Secure trash cans and pet foods so they do not attract wild animals.
• Keep bats out of living areas by securing open or loose fitting doors, attics, unscreened windows, and chimneys. 
• Be sure to have your pets vaccinated against rabies and keep current with booster shots.

While human rabies cases in the U.S. are rare, they do occur and the results are usually fatal.  In Wisconsin, the most recent cases of human rabies were in 2000 and 2004 with both cases resulting from a bite from an infected bat.  For more information on rabies, visit these websites:

http://dhs.wisconsin.gov/communicable/factsheets/Rabies.htm           http://www.cdc.gov/rabies