Rabies rates down from 2007

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

Smyth County, the local health district and the state track behind 2007 year-to-date figures for reported cases of rabies. But a health official insists the public keep up vigilance in efforts to hold the numbers down.

As of August 9, the 32nd week of 2008, Virginia Department of Health figures show 375 cases reported across the commonwealth since Jan. 1. By the same week of 2007, the database showed 451 reported cases.

The 2008 tally went up by two last week with the reporting of Washington County’s third and fourth rabies case since the first of the year. The confirmation of both cases on a single day Friday prompted that county’s sheriff’s office to issue a news release.

The release said one of the infected animals was a raccoon found dead Tuesday on Wagner Road.

Scott Honaker, environmental health manager for Mount Rogers Health District, said the other was found on Reedy Creek Road near Abingdon. Both raccoons were involved in altercations with dogs, he said.

“They’ve both only been in contact with dogs, all the dogs have been vaccinated, and all the dogs are getting booster [vaccines],“ Honaker said. “No animals had to be euthanized because we evidently had very responsible animal owners who had their pets’ vaccinations up to date.“

Washington County’s first rabies case this year was in a skunk in March. The second was also a skunk, which authorities confirmed was rabid last month after it bit a dog on Mountain City Road near Damascus. No human contact was involved.

Smyth County stands at two cases, the first of which came in February in the Horseshoe Bend Road section north of Chilhowie.

Honaker said in the second incident, a raccoon “collected at 125 East Chilhowie Street in Marion” April 5 also tested positive for rabies.

In the Horseshoe Bend Road case, a dog was put down after its encounter with the raccoon, prompting a relative of the owner, who received rabies shots, to ask the county to require public notifications of rabies cases.

However, Lavonda Carson of the Smyth County Health Department said the best action is for citizens to recognize rabies is endemic and encounters with rabid animals are possible everywhere. People should continually observe appropriate precautions, not just when notices are issued, she said.

Loudon County leads Virginia in rabies cases, with 26 reported so far this year. Fairfax County follows with 22 and Fauquier County with 21. About 30 counties report one rabies case, but none can claim zero rabies cases.

In April, Tennessee officials sounded an alarm based on predictions for a high number of rabies cases through the rest of the year.
“We haven’t had that many in the past, but for some reason this year, we’ve had more that’s been tested positive,“ said Steve Ward, animal control manager and supervisor for Sullivan County, Tenn. “It’s going to be a bigger threat ... the incidence that has occurred so close together, it looks like it’s going to be on the rise.“
Ward said with two cases confirmed a mile apart in Bluff City, the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office placed a reverse 911 call to residents alerting them to avoid raccoons, the main carriers of the disease, and to vaccinate their pets.
Some Washington County, Va., officials were concerned back in the spring that rabies would be more prevalent this year than in the past.
“I’m afraid that’s a problem we’re going to have this summer and spring,“ Erik Hinchey, an animal control officer for the Washington County, Va., Sheriff’s Office, said in April.
Honaker was not so sure, saying rabies may not be worse this year than usual in the area, but it is reoccurring in the region.
“It’s all fluctuating, and it all depends on the animals sent for laboratory submission,“ said Honaker of rabies data in his district, which stretches from Washington County to Wythe County.
This week, he cautious in interpreting the lower figures compared to those of a year ago.
“It may well be too soon to predict a reduction of rabies activities for 2008,” he said, calling 2007 “an abnormally high year.”
“We have some localities that are seeing more positive samples than last year and I understand that Sullivan County just across our southwestern border has had a banner year thus far with at least a dozen positives,” Honaker said.
As evidence of the fluctuation in the numbers of reported cases, Honaker said he checked the 2007 year for the Mount Rogers Health District “and found that there were 40 positives. For 2006, our district shows 47 positives. However, 20 of those were from Wythe County alone. Wythe had only nine in 2007 and presently has seven for 2008, so the numbers ebb and flow from locality to locality.”
While the incidence of case reports seems to wander across the landscape, Honaker and other officials say no one should assume rabies is a problem someplace else. And there’s plenty of summer left in which people may still learn rabies, like all politics, is local.

“Currently, for 2008,” Honaker said, “I counted 22 through last week for Mount Rogers and we still have several weeks of typical wildlife activity through end of summer and into the fall season for more rabies cases to show up.”

While people rely on weather officials to warn them when precautions are needed ahead of dangerous conditions, Honaker, like Carson, wants the public to consider itself permanently on notice for rabies under an alert that is always in effect.

“One of the important messages we should continue stating is that rabies continues to be present in our area of the commonwealth and we all should take the necessary responsible measures to protect our pets and ourselves,” Honaker said. “I would continue to advise the same precautions of keeping pets vaccinations up to date, enjoying wildlife from a distance, never take in wild animals as pets, report stray dogs and cats to your local animal control, don’t attempt to assist an injured wild animal. Instead, contact a wildlife professional. If you don’t know the dog or cat then don’t approach it. If you are bitten, immediately wash the wound with warm soapy water and call the local health department. If necessary, seek medical attention.”

Debra McCown, Media General News Service, contributed.