Marylander dies from rabies

Details are still sketchy but a Maryland resident recently died of rabies.  We do not yet know when the death occurred or where, whether it was a man or woman, adult or child.  Full story here.

Rabid Bobcat attacks Mass. Man

If you are attacked by a bobcat in your garage, the cat most likely has rabies.  According to news reports, a man in western Massachusetts was attacked by a bobcat in his garage:

Roger Mundell Jr. went into the garage in Brookfield on Sunday morning to fetch some tie-down straps for a friend when the animal attacked.
It then ran out of the garage and bit Mundell's 15-year-old nephew on the arms and back.
Mundell and his wife pinned the cat to the ground and shot it dead.
Mundell, his nephew and his wife, are being treated for rabies. His wife wasn't bitten, but got the animal's blood on her.
State Environmental Police took the bobcat to have it tested for rabies, which they think is likely given its unusual behavior.

Bobcats are usually shy and solitary creatures; they are listed as a game animal in the state.

Live rabies in a Texas family dog

When a family from Titus County, TX brought their aggressive, disoriented dog to the animal clinic, veterinarians immediately diagnosed rabies and euthanized the pet.   According to the Daily Tribune,

Both Drs. Katy Dunn and Ronnie Robertson, who operates Robertson-Dunn Veterinary Services on Industrial Street, said they can’t recall the last time they saw a dog with active rabies.  The dog was euthanized Monday, along with the other three family dogs who had been exposed, and the members of the family now must have post-exposure rabies vaccinations, said Dr. Robertson. 

Once active, rabies is always fatal, said Dunn, “you die a slow, painful death."

5 children die of rabies in Ghana

This is a truly awful story in this day and age.  Rabies is fatal but treatment is possible when grownups and civic leaders take responsibility for understanding the danger.  But apparently five children in Ghana, bitten by rabid dogs between April and October, have died.  Such deaths are unnecessary.

http://www.allghananews.com/general-news/6322-five-children-die-from-rabies-infection-in-koforidua#

Rabid Beaver Attacks Elderly Swimmer in Fairfax, VA

According to Washington, DC news stories in t, an 83 year old woman was attacked by a rabid beaver while swimming in Fairfax, VA.

In a horror movie, a shark or an oversized barracuda might attack an unsuspecting swimmer, but in Fairfax County it was a 35-pound rabid beaver that drove an 83-year-old woman out of the water screaming.
The woman was swimming early Tuesday evening in Lake Barcroft, a 135-acre private lake in a neighborhood near Bailey’s Crossroads, when a rabid beaver attacked, latching on to her and biting her several times.

This was the second attack this year.  Two girls were attacked in July.  The woman was brought to a nearby hospital and administered treatment for rabies.

The Post reports:

During the struggle, the beaver took a bite out of her left calf, nearly bit off her thumb, and left puncture wounds all over her arms and legs....it wouldn’t stop.

Rabies is more common in the summer.

 

Possibly Rabid Bat at Baltimore Ravens game

It sounds like an after-the-fact nightmare.  You're sitting happily at a pre-season football game with your family and the newspaper says that there was a bat fluttering oddly in your section.  Do you go to get shots?  This happened Wednesday night in Baltimore

A bat landed on a person sitting in section 500 of M&T Bank Stadium as the Ravens played the Detroit Lions in a preseason game, officials said. It isn't known whether the bat had rabies because the person brushed it off and the bat flew away. But health officials said it's possible other people seated in the area could have touched the bat.

I'm not sure what I would do.  Lose sleep most likely.  If the bat flew away, it most likely was not rabid.  Rabid bats generally do not fly normally.  

Rabid bats may show abnormal behavior, such as outdoor activity during daylight; rabid bats may be grounded, paralyzed or may bite a person or animal. Not all rabid bat act abnormally, but bats that do are more likely to have rabies.

Scoutmaster Attacked; Scouts Kill Rabid Beaver

A rabid beaver attacked a scoutmaster in Eastern Pennsylvania as he was swimming with a group of teenage scouts.

According to a story in the Poughkeepsie Journal, the scoutmaster saw a dark shape that loomed up from the water and bit him on the chest.

Once he was bitten, he grabbed the animal and threw it away from his body. “Then it came at me again,” he said.
The beaver bit him in the leg and then again in his buttocks, arm, hand and waist. At that point, Brousseau said, “the adrenaline kicked in.”
“I grabbed it in its mouth,” he said. “I had it around its bottom jaw as tightly as I could because I knew it was going to either bite me or bite the boys. I called the Scouts to come give me a hand.”

The boys pulled their scoutmaster to shore; the beaver was thrown to the ground, stunned, and the boys stoned it to death.   Duchess County officials confirmed the next day that the beaver was rabid.  The scoutmaster has received a regimen of rabies shots -- 20 so far.

While beaver attacks are rare, see below for the story of an attack last summer, and there are reports that the beaver who bit two girls in North Caroline last month was rabid.  The girls are also getting shots.