I was reading this thread, and I’m wondering if it would be possible for rabies to be eliminated from North America?
The idea that anywhere can be be totally rabies free is a bit of a polite fiction. Even Scotland had a death in 2002 (bat bite).
Anyhoo, according to the CDC
There is a rabies vaccine that is effective in Foxes, Coyotes and Racoons.
In order to rid the US of rabies, you’d need to drop millions or maybe billions of bait traps over virtually the whole United States (check here for how widespread it is).
It’s already nearly eliminated as a cause of human death–down to a couple cases per year in the US, e.g.
It’s not likely we could eliminate it in the wild. It definitely would not be possible without eliminating the bat population and that would be a tragedy far greater than the occasional human death from rabies.
We have two entire continents that are rabies free, along with dozens of individual nations.
There is nothing polite or even remotely fictitious about places being rabies free.
Why not?
Cite?
I know Australia used to be considered rabies free, but this article suggests a variant form of the disease has been spread to Australia by fruit bats (which can travel hundreds of miles over open sea.)
Whether or not Antarctica is rabies free is probably based around the fact that all Antarctica natural life is non-mammalian. The odd whale or seal in the area are oft-considered to be marine life and not strictly Antarctican. And, if a seal had rabies in Antarctica who would ever really know, any way?
How would you put a stop to it, might be a better question? A disease that is in the bat population would be very difficult to put a stop to, we have little control over bats. There are way too many for us to vaccinate them all.
Even countries which are “ostensibly rabies free” like the UK, probably have some rabies in bats. Some bats travel from deep Africa to Scotland, they are very wide-ranging creatures.
I’ve no idea. Perhaps some clever Doper does?
Until we develop custom-engineered airborne immunization viruses that is 
The question would be better phrased, "Could the US and Canada become free of terrestrial rabies. The discussion is much more interesting if you eliminate bat rabies from the equation. Most epidemiologists I’ve discussed this with believe that with “small islands” it is doable. Even then, keeping the island free of the virus requires constant scrutiny. Many believe that the tunnel linking France and Britain will do away with Britain’s claim as a rabies free country.
Rabies Found worldwide, except for a few island nations, Australia, and Antarctica.It’s in no way controversial that two entire continents and dozens of nations are rabies free.
No, it doesn’t.
The article actually says that a chemical analysis returned positive test for rabies. If you read the entire thing it then says clearly that it was a false positive due to " the new rabieslike virus Pteropid lyssavirus" and that "since the new lyssavirus differs slightly from classical rabies, “Australia should continue to be regarded as a rabiesfree country.”
Nowhere does the article say that rabies had been spread to Australia, nor does it say where, when or how the bat Lyssavirus arrived in Australia. The disease has probably existed there for eons.
Seals are mammals.
By whom? Zoologists certainly consider them to be anormal part of the antcrtic fauna.
That seems like an argument from ignorance. There is no evidence of rabies in Antactica and no reason to believe there is or ever has been rabies in Antactica. Of course we can’t prove that selas aren’t infacted, but we can’t prove they don’t turn into flying spaghetti monsters evey evening either.
Of course there are hundreds of zoologists who study Atnractic seals and I would imagine a seal in Antarctica has a far better chance of being diagnosed with the disease than a coyote in Texas.
So back to your original point then Blake, since two continents and “several nations” are rabies free, all we have to do to replicate that situation is make every country an island?
Or make every country sparsely populated so that any cases of rabies in the wild will be highly unlikely to ever be discovered by man?
Have you ever been anywhere near Antarctica, I have. Your claim that there’s a reasonable chance we’d have any idea whatsoever if a seal down there had rabies is beyond ludicrous. How intellectually honest is it to call any place “rabies free” when in truth there’s no way you could ever know that. Bats in Australia could easily have rabies and we’d never know it.
If your definition of rabies-free is “no detected cases in the human population in X number of years” then sure, we could achieve such a number the world over. But how do you propose we eliminate rabies in the bat population? Until you answer that, you have to tacitly admit that we can’t in fact make the world rabies free.
Or rather, answer what you think is special about the bats in Australia versus the ones in Indonesia, who do have rabies. Do you think some active measures on behalf of Australians has made their bats rabies free when bats in Indonesia are not? (even though of course, bats from Indonesia can actually fly over to Australia) I’m assuming once the bats cross over into Australian territory something happens which removes their rabies?
As for my comment about Antarctic wildlife, I’m not expert on classifying whether or not an animal should be deemed antarctic or not. I’ve heard penguins referred to as both marine animals and Antarctic animals, the same for antarctic fur seals.
The simple truth of the matter is, the poster who said “rabies free” is a pleasant fiction was spot on. The UK can’t be rabies free because France isn’t. Sweden and Norway can’t be rabies free because Denmark isn’t, nor is Finland. Japan can’t be rabies free because China isn’t.
The only place I think has a legitimate chance of actually being rabies free is Antarctica (as opposed to just being labeled as rabies free.) Because I don’t believe bats can make it down to the continent and the incidence of rabies in seals and whales is virtually non-existant.
So your entire position is an argument from ignorance: we can’t prove comprehensively that Antarctica and Australia are rabies free, so we have to assume they aren’t. Classic argument from ignorance.
Suffice it to say that if the CDC and all the world’s major quarantine and veterinary institutions accept those two continents as rabies free then for the Straight Dope they are rabies free. We’re here to fight ignorance, not construct arguments based on it.