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Subscribe to RSSAn 82-year-old Pennsylvania woman is undergoing treatment after being bitten by a skunk while gardening. The animal tested positive for rabies. WCAU's Rosemary Connors reports.
It’s been a wild year for rabies in the U.S, with rising reports of the disease in animals -- think rabid skunks, bats, even beavers -- just as supplies of the vaccine used to treat humans for the deadly virus are down.
“We’ve had essentially a lack of a winter, a very warm summer and reports of animal rabies are up,” said Jesse Blanton, an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Though no firm figures are available, Blanton estimates that the number of rabid animals confirmed in the U.S. will reach the upper margins of the 6,000 to 7,000 typically found in a year. In 2011, the number barely topped 6,000.
“We had a much earlier start to the bat season this year,” he said. “It was a month early in some places. It’s really been across the board.”
No human cases of rabies infection have been reported in the U.S. this year, though six cases were reported in 2011, a high number in a country that typically sees only one or two. Three of those cases were in people who had contact with rabid animals in other countries.
But the number of human exposures to rabid animals seems to be higher this year, even in a country where up to 100 cases of possible contact may be reported across the nation on a typical summer day. And some of the cases have been sensational enough to make headlines:
- In May, an Arizona man killed a rabid mountain lion with a skillet after the big cat attacked the family dog on a hiking trip.
- In July, a Maryland woman was kicked in the face by a rabid deer.
- Last week, a rabid beaver jumped from a pond and chased children in Virginia, just days after a rabid beaver attacked an 83-year-old woman.
- And, in a more typical encounter, an 82-year-old woman in Wayne, Pa., was attacked Saturday in her backyard garden by a rabid skunk.
“It’s been a more intense summer for reports of human contacts,” Blanton said. However, the increased contact comes just as the two manufacturers of rabies vaccine in the U.S. -- Novartis and Sanofi Pasteur -- are reporting limited supplies and no clear date for resolution.
CDC officials have stopped short of calling the problem a shortage, but there’s no question supplies are thin. The agency reported last week that Novartis’ RabAvert, a rabies vaccine for pre-exposure use, is available only from wholesale distributors who already had existing stock. And the CDC advised that while supplies of vaccine for post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, remain available, health officials should make sure that rabies shots go only to those who need them.
“It’s a little worrisome. It makes us even more cautious,” said Dr. Paul Ettestad, New Mexico’s state health veterinarian. “Usually we keep enough vaccine on hand for 10 people and right now we have enough only for three or four.”
Sixty people in New Mexico have had to be treated this year with rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, after coming into contact with rabid animals, including domestic pets, Ettestad said. An outbreak of the disease that began in December has been concentrated in Eddy County in the south part of the state.
Typically, between 30 and 70 people are treated in New Mexico in an entire year with the PEP series that includes a dose of human rabies immune globulin and four doses of vaccine given over two weeks.
Overall in the U.S., between 23,000 and 38,000 people receive PEP vaccinations after confirmed or possible exposure to rabid animals each year.
This year's combination of high demand and low vaccine supply has created sporadic problems across the country, said Blanton.
“A crimped supply is a good way to refer to it,” he said. “Largely it appears to be a short delay that happened within the distribution chain of the vaccines.”
That means that although there may be enough rabies vaccine to go around, it may take longer or be more complicated to get it. In Illinois, for instance, several providers had difficulty acquiring rabies vaccine PEP for patients with rabies exposure, according to Melaney Arnold, a health department spokeswoman.
CDC officials said they believe the smoother distribution will resume soon, but the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which tracks the nation’s drug shortages, reported that neither Novartis nor Sanofi Pasteur could estimate when the products would be available.
This isn’t the first -- nor the worst -- “crimp” in the supply of rabies vaccine. An outright shortage in 2009 rippled through the rabies community, forcing states to implement secret passwords to gain access to vaccine and leading to a reevaluation of how many doses of vaccine were actually needed to prevent infection. In 2010, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, agreed to reduce the number of doses from five to four.
The situation is not that dire now, but health care providers are urged to closely evaluate rabies cases before prescribing vaccine.
“We’ve never had the recommendation that there’s carte blanche that everyone needs to be vaccinated,” Blanton said. “We are expecting a normal, healthy, cognizant person to be aware if they had contact with a bat.”
In practice, however, determining whether contact actually occurred is harder than it seems. In Kentucky earlier this year, state health officials had to interview more than 260 people who worked as volunteers at a charity service organization and wound up sleeping in an old schoolhouse infested with bats.
“We categorized everyone as low risk, moderate risk or high risk,” said Dr. Kraig Humbaugh, the Kentucky state epidemiologist. “Instead of a blanket recommendation, we were being judicious with our vaccine administration.”
Sixteen of the volunteers were advised to consult with their doctors about PEP because they had known contact with a bat. Others were pointed toward treatment because they’d slept in a room where a bat was found. Rabies is primarily spread through the infected saliva of an animal, usually through bites. The fear is that certain people -- those who sleep too soundly, those on medication, the disabled and children -- might not realize it if they've been bitten by a bat. Still others might not feel the sting of the bat's sharp teeth.
In 2011, two of the U.S. rabies victims didn’t report contact with bats, but both had reported waking to find bats in their bedroom. Both later developed the disease and died, a CDC report said.
When in doubt, health officials usually err on the side of vaccination, experts said. The incubation period for rabies is typically one to three months, but it can vary widely, from less than a week to more than a year, according to the World Health Organization.
The rabies vaccine PEP is the only way to stop the infection, and only during the incubation period. After that, the horrific symptoms progress rapidly, often including fever, pain, agitated behavior, hyperactivity and hydrophobia -- difficulty swallowing and panic at the thought of water. The disease is almost always fatal.
Rabies exposure typically wanes after the first frost, said Blanton, who is looking forward to colder weather. Vaccine supplies should become more plentiful, too.
“Additional lots are already coming down,” he said. “We should be back to normal.”
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Don't have any definitive proof...but I'm sure I came across a rabid mouse (yes, a mouse) in the parking lot behind my apartment. I was going to drive down to the field to play softball when I saw the fuzzball sitting squat in the middle of the lot. I actually parked the car and got out to look...he was very much alive but just sitting there, as if waiting to be picked up by a hawk or something. I touched him with my kleet, gently, and he kind of looked at me but didn't run. I touched him again and he started to run, sqeaking. I guided him towards the dumpsters where I thought he'd be a little safe and then left. Hours later, I'm taking the trash out and he's still in the lot! I couldn't believe my eyes! He must have been rabid because what sane mouse would sit out in the open like that for hours? Plus, when he ran he stumbled quite a bit. I had the sense not to touch him or pick him up with my hands. The little thing would have died naturally soon enough.
He may have just been sick with something else. Aren't rabid animals pretty violent?
Not all animals that get rabies will be violent. There are two types, dumb and furious.
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/102300.htm
AG99,
Chris is correct. Not all rabid animals are violent. Some will just show signs of sickness. Horses generally just show signs of lethargy, for instance. It was very wise not to touch the mouse.
I'm not sure if it dawned on you later that the mouse was rabid or if you knew it at the time, but if you did know it, you shouldn't have left it there. In an apartment complex, the mouse would have been vulnerable to curious or even mean children who wouldn't have been able to resist the temptation to torture it. By leaving the poor mouse alone to end his days in peace, you might have been exposing the neighbor children to rabies. I guess if children are going to torture small animals, they may well deserve to get bitten, but I'll bet their parents wouldn't think so.
He may have been in the process of dying from being poisoned. Rodents seldom get rabies.
Information on the CDC website is useful for anyone with questions. Better to get info from experts than a news article.
Violent? I've had to deal with a rabid beaver.
The mouse wasn't likely to be rapid. There are extremely few rabid small rodents because they usually don't survive an attack from a rabid animal such as a dog, badger, etc. Same thing for rats.
We have had 7 rabies cases in NJ the past few month's, in my county, with 3 bats found in the last month. Cases are much higher than usual. Though someone with more knowledge than me would have to explain what that has to do with weather.
I stumbled upon a rabid spider in my driveway, it cartwheeled around wildly, then constantly attacked my shoe, was terribly freaky.
Rabies only affects warm blooded mammals.
I think I have a rabid spider in my yard too. And its making webs so large I almost got trapped in one the other night.
There are no "cold blooded" mammals.
IDK... I've been called Cold Blooded before.
No human cases of rabies infection have been reported in the U.S. this year, .........
Sixty people in New Mexico have had to be treated this year with rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, or PEP, after coming into contact with rabid animals, including domestic pets, Ettestad said.
What a lot of people do not know is if you report a case, they WILL kill your cat or dog to test if you report a bite. In other countries people are being educated about rabies, they will quarantine pets suspected of rabies. There is no need to kill an animal for testing, a 10 day quarantine will show if the animal has rabies. How many cats and dogs will needlessly die because the health department will not let the owners know. They demand you give them your pet for testing and then kill them, even though there have been no reported cases of people getting infected by pets in recent history.
In most states, if an animal is vaccinated, a 10 day quarantine is usually the case. It is very rare for them to actually sacrifice a pet because of a bite. In 15 years of practice (including TX where there are cases of domestic animals having rabies), I have never had a case where someone was forced to turn over their animal for sacrifice for testing. Also, the 10 days quarantine does not show if an animal has rabies, it only tells if they were actively shedding the virus at the time of a bite (if it is in the salivary glands then the animal will often have symptoms within 10 days. However, if infected but still incubating, the 10 days does not mean anything other than they weren't contagious at the time of the bite). Also, there have been infections from people being bitten by dogs, cats and even a guinea pig in the US... luckily, the vast majority of these people were treated with the PEP and the fatal disease was averted.
/@justthefax I just recieved the last of my rabies shots 2 weeks ago. I live in Oh. I don't know where you are getting your info but it is wrong
What part is wrong? I ask because in my experience pets are killed for rabies tests after biting. I'd rather prevent rabies, but it'd be nice not to have to put down a beloved pet for mere suspicion of a relatively rare (though fatal) disease.
@JD - not sure where you live, but Brookek's post is more consistent with how domestic animal bites are handled. If the animal is a pet, or captured after the bite, it's quarantined for observation. This practice dates back to when earlier treatment for possible rabies exposure required a very painful series of approximately 10 injections in the abdomen. Doctors weren't going to put people through this series of injections if it could be avoided. In cases were a suspected rabid animal had been killed, the head and brain would be examined at special lab facilities. If someone was bitten and the suspected rabid animal wasn't captured, the injection series was given.
My brother and sister-in-law helped a neighbor with a horse they thought was choking on something it had eaten in the hay. A stick or such thing. They all were exposed to the foamy saliva. The horse then seemed fine. But 2 days later began foaming and staggering and the vet was called immediately. It had the dumb form and they all were vaccinated. Of course, the horses head was sent in and was positive. Horse rabies happens in my area on a regular basis. One had it at the sale barn and was sold. It had been run with and exposed 20-30 other horses and all buyers had to be tracked down, many in surrounding states to have their horses checked for any symptoms and kept isolated. Was a big scare. Rabies is truly a frightening disease insidious as it is.
There's not enough vaccine to properly treat people to prevent rabies from taking hold? Even people with cancer are being told they can't get their needed meds because the "factory" isn't making enough?
What's the REAL reason that Big Pharma is not making enough drugs and vaccines????
The real reason is that they want to drive up prices by causing scarcity. They are positioning themselves to make a killing on fewer doses of ALL drugs after everyone is insured. Just watch and see what the lying bastards do after 2014.
Someday someone will shoot the robber barons after losing a loved one to their greedy price-fixing and gouging. Gotcha, you greedy monsters!
There has been a vaccine shortage for at least 2 years now. It does appear to be more common in the summer months, but that may be related to increased human and pet interactions with wild hosts being more likely in the summer than winter.
A 10 day quarantine may not reveal whether an animal has rabies or not. The United Kingdom requires a quarantine of 6 months and the CDC suggests that unvaccinated pets that come into contact with a rabid animal should be quarantined for 6 months if they are not euthanized. Vaccinated pets should be kept under observation for 45 days.
Years ago while in the service in South America we had been warned about rabies. I had to drop a guy that was coming at me acting violent and foaming at the mouth. Later I felt really terrible when I found out that the infirmary was passing out Alka-Seltzers and many of the locals thought they were chewables.
and here I thought they were going to talk about Islam
This article is entering "Alarmist" territory. 6 cases last year HALF of which involved an animal bite in ANOTHER country.
3 cases. Up ONE. The human population is exploding so....given that ratio, we might actually be down.
As someone who is vaccinated against rabies due to my job working with wildlife in this country and abroad I see no alarming trend from the info in THIS article.
Bat's CARRY the virus. They do not get the disease. (No crazed hair intanglements to fear)
Recent evidence in Peru suggests SOME people may be immune. THAT is the most interesting Rabies info this year.
This reminds me of that comedy movie, "Furry Vengeance" Brendan Fraser was the main character. LOL. I just had to laugh. Too many humans on earth anyways.Humans are like roaches, they destroy everything in their paths. Nature, animals, natural resources, ozone layer, global warming etc. After humans are done with earth, what next? Mars? Sort of like the "Men in Black" movie. The giant roach represent earthlings. lol!
England eradicated rabies in the late 70's from their country. I realize we are not an island and we are geographically much much larger, but as a whole, we've done a pretty poor job in this area. If an outbreak occurs we have nothing in place to save off an epidemic.
Look at how Swine Flu was handled, for instance.
I want to know more about the hiker who beat off a rabid mountain lion with a skillet! A mountain lion is one wild critter that I am truly afraid of: a rabid one= lifetime nightmares. Going up against one with a skillet? And who hikes with a skillet???
A little clarification on what happens when a domestic animal bits: it depends on the policies and enforcemnet of the policies of local animal control agencies. My 9 year-old was pulled off of his bike and bitten by an unrestrained, unlicensed, unvaccinated pet dog in LA County. Animal control told me that they had instructed the owners to "keep an eye on" their dog for the next few days, and if the dog showed any signs of rabies, to notify animal control. Being an unreasonable, hysterical mother, I told Animal Control that I found that solution to be unacceptable. The dog was destroyed because the owners weren't willing to pay the county the kennel fee to quarantine their dog for a week. It was sad that the dog (which had no signs or symptoms of rabies) was destroyed because it had irresponsible owners
Just an FYI for everyone that exposure to rabid bats is becoming more of a problem not necessarily only because they bite humans/other mammals and expose them to rabies virus, but that the virus remains active in their systems for 12-18 months without them acting sick and they also pass it in their guano (bowel movements)...Thus inhaling aerosolized bat guano (and/or exposure of it to an exposed/open mucus membrane of any type) can put other mammals at risk for rabies infection.
It's NOT just all about bites anymore, folks. :(
Why the shortage of vaccine? This is the more concerning part of the story and warrants more than a passing, vague mention.