Virginia Department of Health warns about animal rabies

The United States is concerned about new wave of animal rabies. The latest reports seem very discouraging and dark, especially when it comes to numbers.

Photo: Virginia Department of Health warns about animal rabies

The Virginia Department of Health received last year 730 reports about rabid animals — that is the number that can be compared only with that of 1982, when there were 745 reported cases.

According to these reports raccoons remained the animal most commonly diagnosed with rabies. About 359 cases of all the reported in 2007 were rabid raccoon cases. Skunks took the second place, with 185 cases, and foxes formed the third position, with 90 reported cases.

Among other cases there were 36 cats and 5 dogs, that were either strays or had not any vaccination.

The following information shouldn’t be interpreted as an index of increased number of animals with rabies, but rather accounts for increased cases of encounters with rabid animals that involves reporting these animals immediately to the health department.