Rabies is a disease that’s met with an interesting mix of inherent fear and dismissiveness in most developed countries, where canine rabies has been eradicated. It’s also a disease that’s often poorly understood in areas where it causes large numbers of deaths. As an almost completely preventable disease (with proper post-exposure treatment), and one for
Don’t Take One of Those To Go…Raccoons Handed Out Outside a Convenience Store
Lots of things you can get at a convenience store aren’t great for your health, but I wouldn’t have thought we’d have to add rabies to the list of concerns.
Public health officials in Niagara Falls, NY, are trying to track down nine baby raccoons that were handed out by someone outside a 7-Eleven store
Things not to do with raccoons
I’ll hold back and just classify this as “not a great idea.”
How do that many people get exposed to a single raccoon?
Step 1: Take a wild raccoon and try to make it
Bat on a plane…What to do?
It wasn’t a snake and Samuel L. Jackson (presumably) wasn’t there to save the day, but Spirit Airlines passengers on a recent flight had to deal with an unwanted stowaway. During a flight from Charlotte to Newark, a bat started flying around the cabin of the Spirit Airlines aircraft. It likely flew into the
Rabies post-exposure prophylaxis… What is it?
Since the recently reported case of rabies in a man from BC, Canada, I’ve done a lot of interviews. One thing that has struck me is the continued misconception about what rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is, and the perception that it’s a long, painful ordeal.
It isn’t (at least not anymore)… and I know
Human rabies, BC Canada (2019)
Rabies is a high-profile disease and human rabies is exceptionally rare in Canada. While rabies is relatively widespread in wildlife in North America, it’s is rare in domestic animals in Canada, and spillover into people is fortunately rarer still because people have less direct contact with wildlife reservoirs, and because post-exposure prophylaxis is so effective
Rabies warning at Epcot
I’ve been slow to write about this (and other things lately… busy/lazy) but a rabid feral cat found in the vicinity of Disney’s Epcot Center in Orlando, FL has attracted a lot of attention. The Department of Health in Orange County has issued a 60 day alert for a two mile radius around where the
Canine rabies imported from Egypt to the US, 2019
During today’s Public Health Agency of Canada webinar, part of a new webinar series on zoonoses and adaptation in a changing world, Chelsea Raybern from the Kansas State Deptartment of Health and Environment provided a report about rabies in a dog that was imported into Kansas from Egypt in 2019.The dog had been
US ban of importation of dogs from Egypt
Effective tomorrow, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has suspended importation of dogs to the US that:
- are from Egypt, or
- originated in Egypt and have been in another country for less than 6 months.
This is being done because of multiple cases of rabies in imported dogs specifically from Egypt over
Oral rabies virus exposure
Rabies is “almost always” transmitted by bites and “almost invariably” fatal once disease develops in a person or animal. We use a lot of these kinds of disclaimers with infectious diseases, which can be frustrating, but it’s necessary because exceptional (strange) things occasionally occur.
A report in an upcoming edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases (