In my career I have diagnosed only one case of rabies in a domestic mammal. It was a cat.
When I was in veterinary school, the MD who was there to discuss vaccination mentioned that in a group our size (100 peeps) it was likely that one or two of us would get pretty sick. I was one of the reactors. I was sick (in bed) for about 24 hours after the first, and the worst part was knowing that I would be worse with each successive vaccine.
Rabies trivia: although mammals are the big threat, rabies virus has been isolated from the oral cavity of a Great Horned Owl that had been feeding on the carcass of a rabid skunk. The owl was not infected, however the virus was present.
More rabies trivia: The virus is very cold hardy. Live virus has been recovered from frozen carcasses. The species you should be worried about are raccoons, foxes, skunks, and bats. They act as the primary reservoirs for the virus.
IIRC, the cost of treatment was $700 per injection, but apparently, this wasn’t one of those things you could just walk into the ER and have done, you have to contact public health authorities and the like. You can listen to the episode here. (It’s the first story, BTW, and runs for about 11 minutes.) The poor woman, after surviving a horrorific attack by the 'coon (and it had her pinned to the ground, before her family was able to pry it off and beat it to death with a shovel [I guess none of them owned a gun]), then had to fight with the bureaucrats who didn’t want to deal with it (even though the clock was running out).
I don’t doubt that everyone out there would pay whatever it took to get the treatment, but from the way it sounds, it’s one of those things that money necessarily isn’t the only answer.
And did you know that ~$698.00 of that is for liability issues? The vaccine used (aside from the initial gamma globulin injection) comes off the same line that makes veterinary rabies vaccine, but carries the human label. It is an inexpensive product to produce, but there is incredible potential for liability in case of morbidity/mortality.
I heard the *This American Life * original broadcast, and I would just ad that YMMV. When two of my employees had exposure to rabies, they went to the ER while I was reporting the exposure to the County Health Department. They got their first injection and finished their shifts.
How worried should I be about rabies as someone who hunts or traps fur-bearing mammals? If I’m out hunting foxes, how likely is it that the foxes I catch are infected?
I remember reading something a long time ago about an oral rabies vaccine being dropped in an attempt to inoculate wild populations. Does that actually happen, or am I completely making that up? If there’s no approved vaccine for anything other than major domestic species, how could this have been done?
What do people with pet skunks and such do? They’ve been bred in captivity for hundreds of years and may not have had contact with a wild animal or even been outdoors for many generations, do they always need to be euthanized and decapitated in the event of a bite, or is quarantine sufficient? What about wildlife rehabbers? Do they assume every animal that comes in is potentially infected and handle them accordingly? Are the non-releasable animals they keep always a liability in the sense that they can’t be (legally) vaccinated?
I was exposed to rabies, let’s see… 17 years ago. Wow… I can’t believe it’s been that long!
Anyway, in my situation, I found a kitten on my doorstep while living in the outskirts of the mighty metropolis of Waco. This happened on a Friday night, and the Humane Society wasn’t open over the weekend. The kitten was very lethargic, and was obviously quite young.
I took it in, with the intention of taking it to the animal shelter on Monday. As I said, it was very lethargic, although it would occasionally have seizures (which I chalked up to illness and/or malnutrition.
On Monday, literally as I was handing it to the people at the animal shelter, it went into convulsions and died. Their response was, “So, has anyone besides you been in contact with this animal?” :eek:
In addition to myself, my wife, two-year-old son, and my friend all had to get the shot series. Luckily this was the modern series of shots, and not the abdominal shots. My wife, son, and friend all had insurance- I didn’t. My shots ended up costing me $1700.00.
Hey, at least we made the local news.
After the Office rabies episode, I ordered one of those “Support the Rabid” bracelets, which I’m now wearing. I love it when people ask me about it.
I would assume any/every raccoon, skunk, or fox to be rabid. The consequences for incorrectly assuming one is not could be disastrous. That said, percentages vary regionally. In my backyard earlier this year I killed several rabid raccoons.
Oral rabies bait is being dropped in areas of western Pennsylvania currently. The knowledge/techniques have been available since at least the late 80s, but the people at the Wistar Institute (Chuck something and his group) had to do an amazing amount of research to prove that the bait would not harm non targeted species. It is still too early to discuss efficacy of the rabies bait program.
Wildlife rehabbers I know either stick with non-mammalian species, or they get pre exposure immunization, like most veterinarians. In fact, it may be worth discussing with your physician or state/county health department if you trap and may be considered high risk.
I don’t know about pet skunks and the like. I do not see mammals that cannot be vaccinated against rabies. And it isn’t that the cannot be vaccinated (legally). I can administer a rabies vaccine to a skunk if I want to do so without breaking the law. I just do not carry enough insurance to cover my ass should anything bad happen.
IIRC, New York state is also dropping the bait as well. TN could really stand to do this as well, as one of the counties here set a national record for the number of rabid skunks in the area. :eek: (BTW, Bosda lives in that county. Not that I’m saying there’s a connection, or anything, but it’s not one of the remote parts of the states this is happening in, it’s one of the fastest growing counties in the state.)
Must I be scratched or bitten to contract it or is handling and skinning a carcass enough to be infected?
I suppose I had always thought of rabies as a remote issue.
If I recall correctly, there are a couple different classes of wildlife rehab licensing the feds provide, one of which encompasses mammalian species. I just got to thinking that if the risk is so high you automatically assume every animal of those four species to be infected, how would anyone ever choose to participate in wildlife rehab?
Incidentally, I have been vaccinated in the past due to a high-risk job handling random-source dogs and non-human primates. Are people considered to have lifetime immunity through the prophylaxis series or do they generally need periodic updates?
Well, sure, I know it’s legal to do. I should have said “not vouched for as effective by vaccine manufacturers”. If I have a pet skunk (I don’t, currently, but would love to have one) that has come from twenty generations of captive-bred skunks and has never been outside beyond my garden, and it scratches someone, is it a given that it has to be decapitated for testing? Who decides?
Well, that’s the point, isn’t it?
We don’t have vaccines that have been proven effective for those critters. Therefore, if you have a pet coon or skunk, no matter how remote the risk of it having been exposed to rabies, if it bites, licks, or scratches someone, you’re screwed (and so is the critter).
My friend’s 4 month old baby daughter was bitten/scratched by a rabid “pet” racoon owned by one of her friends last month. Imagine taking your baby to the ER and then the pediatrician and starting untested (in that age group) rabies’ shots, and then having to go back to your friend’s house and tell her that she’s got to have her husband shoot their pet, or at least cage it for transport, so that it can be shipped off to a lab to have its head cut off for testing. And yes, it came back a positive result for rabies.
Luckily, after the screaming and tears of that day, understanding ensued, and the friendship seems to be intact. And the baby appears to be okay - she’s got one more shot to go through next week.
…but I think I’m NOT going to share with my friend the information that it can take 2 years for symptoms to appear! The doctor told her if they were going to show up, they would have by now, and that’s about the only thing keeping her calm. I’ll just cross my fingers and pray the treatment worked.
First, the Fed does not permit (issue permits allowing) rehab of anything except “migratory birds”. Permitting requirements for rehab of mammals varies from state to state (US) and province to province (Canada) and presumably vary elsewhere. Some jurisdictions provide only a blanket, one size fits all rehab permit (including my state) while others are species-specific, and some separate defined “rabies vector” species from other mammals. There is little uniformity.
Those of us who do accept mammals do indeed treat each as a potential exposure. We quarantine, and use all other methods to prevent casual or direct exposures. And we take the pre-exposure vaccination. And in case of a bite or other actual exposure, we would also require the post-exposure injection series.
Florida no longer requires veterinarians and their employees to have the pre-exposure vaccination, since many vets (as vetbridge stated earlier for him/herself) now will not see wild animal patients.
I would personally consider a trapper who skins his animals to be “high risk” and would suggest the pre-exposure vaccination. And rubber gloves and a face shield.
It isn’t simply that rabies vaccines don’t “take” in coons, skunks, and some others. The vaccines are not tested in wild species, so while we assume some efficacy, we just don’t know for sure.
But worse is the fact that raccoons, skunks, and bats can be “asymptomatic carriers” of the disease. That is, rare individuals may carry, harbor, and transmit the active rabies virus while never becoming ill or showing clinical symptoms. So for these species, in the event of an incident, the only determination will be microscopic examination of brain tissue.
You can have bloodwork done to see how high your immunity is. Check with your local MD.
I’ve talked with folks on both sides of the spectrum, ones who have high titers years after their vaccine and ones who had to be updated 5 or 6 years later.
IIRC, when we were all going through the pre-exposure vaccination 2 years ago, the series cost about $700. Fortunately, if you went through the student health center, the cost was covered. But, a few of my classmates who couldn’t make the scheduled mass vaccination had to pay out of pocket at their local doctor, after going through the enormous trouble of finding someone willing to vaccinate them.
Her.
I’m not actually a trapper, I’m a falconer. While we normally hunt rabbits, gamebirds, and waterfowl, we might take the occasional fox if the situation is right. My hope, though years down the road, is to eventually fly a golden eagle which would mean routine take of foxes, coyotes, and maybe even deer.
Aside from handling the carcass, sometimes the bird needs help with the actual dispatch, which means you have to get up-close and personal with one pissed-off beastie for the dénouement. :eek:
I have, fortunately, never been bitten, but will duly note the risk and be a little more wary in the future.
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/docs/rabies_surveillance_us_2006.pdf [PDF]
That’s the 2006 rabies surveillance report which looks like it comes out of the JAVMA. At the bottom of page 551 there’s a bit about an 11 year old boy who died in California in late 2006 presumably as a result of a dog bite in the Philippines two years previously with no prior symptoms.
Actually, last year my husband and I did trap a bat in our apartment. The local authorities said that we did not have to get the rabies vaccine because of the circumstances involved and that we could positively state there had been NO direct contact of any sort between bat and occupants.
Also, given that I’ve reacted badly to vaccines in the past, there was considerable concern about just how sick I’d get from the vaccine. Of course, if I had been bitten that would be a completely different matter, but having someone say “well, we’ll have resuscitation gear on hand” does give one pause. I mean, spending time in an intensive care unit due to a bad allergic reaction would suck, but not as bad as getting rabies would suck.
So… in the event you have a bat in the house please do contact your local authorities for advice, see a medical professonal and not a message board, and do what you think best.
Ouch. That really sucks. OTOH, since I’m not her doctor, the baby is under medical care, and there’s really nothing else that can be done, I’m going to stick with my “keep my mouth shut and pray” response. Ignorance, despite our motto, sometimes is bliss, and since there’s nothing else that mom can do, I don’t want to give her two years of worry for something that probably won’t happen.
