I fear an uptick in posting!

News is that there are more new rabies cases than ever.  The anti-Vax people are apparently not vaccinating their dogs against rabies. This is very bad. The case of the California art teacher who died of rabies in November 2024 after shooing a bat out of her classroom is a tragedy that ought to have been averted.  Vaccinate your pets!

When a provost gets rabies

To paraphrase David St. Hubbins in This Is Spinal Tap, dozens of provosts contract rabies each year. It's just not really widely reported. When it happens, deans -- who are closest by and thus most exposed -- generally get bitten. Recall that the key symptoms to keep in mind are irritability, aggressiveness, excessive movements or agitation, confusion, bizarre or strange thoughts, or hallucination, unusual postures. Also individuals with rabies produce a lot of saliva (spit), and muscle spasms in their throat might make it hard to swallow. This causes the "foaming at the mouth" symptom.

Keep an eye out and beware.

The Only Good Rabies Story

Read it here:

Jeanna Giese in the Guardian

New Rabies Variant?

Apparently there is a new strain of rabies in the US Northeast, particularly Maine. According to the Coastal Journal, 

State Veterinarian Michele Walsh theorizes a rabies strain more associated with raccoons has begun infecting gray foxes. Recent tests by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from foxes involved in attacks last year support that theory.

No cases in Norway for 200 years, until this month

A very bad rabies story: a young Norway woman traveling to the Philippines was bitten by a sick puppy back to her resort.  She fell ill and died back in Norway.  It was the first rabies death in 200 years, a remarkable statistic for a highly forested country.

Rabies Death in Costa Rica

Human deaths from rabies are alway awful.  Story here.

The child lived in the Osa area, and was bitten by the squirrel on May 5th.  Apparently the boy was eating a sweet, which the squirrel tried to take from the boy, biting him in the process

3 Rabies cases in North Baltimore

According to the Baltimore Sun, three rabid animals -- two cats and a fox -- have been found and killed in recent weeks.   According to ABC News, the cases and dates are:

- June 5: A cat was found in the 300 block of Rossiter Avenue.  A resident thought the cat had been hit by a car and transported it to Falls Road Animal Hospital for emergency care.  The cat was then taken to a second animal hospital where it was euthanized and submitted to the state public health laboratory for rabies testing.

- June 18: A cat was found lying in a yard in the unit block of Warrenton Road.  A resident took the cat to Falls Road Animal Hospital where it was euthanized and sent for rabies testing.

- June 25: A Baltimore City Animal Control Officer picked up a fox that was displaying neurological symptoms (unsteady and dragging itself) in the 1100 block of Bellemore Road.  The fox was euthanized at the city animal shelter and sent for rabies testing.

The Commissioner of Health calls the events "an opportunity to be educated."

"No woman desires a man with rabies."

Don't believe me?  Ask the Past.

Rabid Raccoon attacks in Ocean City, Maryland

According to local news sources, a raccoon that attacked a man in Ocean City this week tested positive for rabies.  Other sources say the same raccoon attacked two others:

The health department reported it was notified Tuesday morning that there was an aggressive raccoon near Northside Park that attacked one person and charged at two others. Officials confirmed that the racoon was later captured and put down.

 

"World War Z" and rabies

Readers heading to see the new Brad Pitt film, World War Z, will catch allusions to rabies.  Zombies are not rabid.  Rabies kills.  Zombies are forever.

The film is terrifying, by the way, so see it even if it isn't about rabies.

Here is some background about the relationship between Zombies and rabies.  

Connecting zombies to rabies isn’t a stretch, it turns out. Rabies is a real and terrifying neurological disease that, when contracted in humans, can make the victim appear zombie-like (fatigue, vision disturbances, slurred speech, loss of coordination) and, if the infection reaches the brain, it is one of the few diseases that is 100 percent fatal and for which there is still no known cure. Once bitten by an infected animal, the human victim begins showing symptoms much like the flu, becoming weak, feverish, and plagued by headaches for several days.

Spanish physician Juan Gomez-Alonso explains four connections between rabies and vampire myths in a 1998Neurology journal article, the most obvious being infection through the blood via bites. Rabies victims also often suffer from facial spasms, lending them an animalistic appearance. The third connection is the time frame: vampire lore had them living for forty days before being turned, the same amount of time it usually takes for the victim of a rabies attack to die after their initial bite. 

Here is an excerpt from Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik's excellent and thorough Rabid:  

Skunks with Rabies in TX

Apparently there are records being set in Texas for skunks with Rabies.  According to news stories,

With three more confirmed rabies cases in June — two in Copperas Cove and one in Gatesville — 2013 is on pace to be the worst rabies season in Coryell County in more than a decade.

All but two of the 18 cases of rabies detected in animals involve skunks.  The rest, raccoons.

In unrelated Texas rabies news, a Guatemalan man in immigration custody died of rabies contracted before he reached the border.

After nearly four decades, Rabies in Spain

According to news reports, a pit bull that attacked several children last week tested positive for rabies, the first confirmed case since 1975.

The dog bit three children, aged two, six and twelve, as well as a 17-year old male in the village of Arges, near Toledo, early this month. It was immediately destroyed and was confirmed to have been rabid following tests on Monday. All were discharged after being given rabies innoculations, apart from the two-year-old who was kept in hospital after being bitten in the face.

Maryland Rabies Death from Organ Donation

The news is just out this morning that the source of rabies in the Maryland man struck down by the disease was a kidney transplant in 2011.  Information is still scant but the AP reports

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a rabies death in Maryland was caused by an organ transplant.
The agency said Friday that three other people in Florida, Georgia and Illinois who got organs from the same donor are getting anti-rabies shots.
The donor died of rabies in Florida in 2011 after moving there from North Carolina.
The CDC says it's working with public health officials and health care facilities in all five states to identify people who were in close contact with the initial donor or the four organ recipients. The agency says those people might need rabies post-exposure treatment.

The Washington Post quoted unnamed sources offering more details.  

The recipient died at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington after being in the hospital for about a month, according to the people with knowledge of the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. He had received a kidney from a Florida man in an operation at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 2011.

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.