Rabies virus infections produce an acute illness with rapidly progressive central nervous system manifestations, including anxiety, dysphasia and seizures. Paralysis may occur in some patients. Rabies in humans is almost always a fatal disease.

It is unwise to try an attempt to catch a wild animal, especially without wearing protective gloves and clothing. However, if someone is bit, the animal should be captured and tested to see if it has rabies to prevent unnecessary treatments.

The vast majority of rabies cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention each year occur in wild animals like raccoons, skunks, bats, and foxes. Domestic animals account for less than 10 percent of the reported rabies cases, with cats, cattle, and dogs most often reported rabid.

Over the past 100 years, rabies in the United States has changed dramatically. More than 90 percent of all animal cases reported annually to CDC now occur in wildlife, while the majority before 1960 was in domestic animals. The number of rabies-related human deaths in the United States has declined from more than 100 annually at the turn of the century to one or two per year in the 1990’s.

Modern day rabies treatments have proven nearly 100 percent successful. In the United States, human fatalities associated with rabies occur in people who fail to seek medical assistance, usually because they were unaware of their exposure.

Bat bites are so tiny that someone may wakeup and not realize they were bit overnight. If someone wakes up and is unsure if they were bit and see a bat in the room should capture the bat and have it tested for rabies.

For more information about rabies, call 626-2230. Click here for more infromation about rabies from the CDC. For further information, click the links below.