WASHINGTON, D.C. (RFD News) — USDA is using oral vaccine baits across the eastern U.S. to help stop the spread of raccoon rabies.
Kathy Nelson with USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service says the vaccination zone is designed to prevent the virus from spreading west.
“We have an oral rabies vaccine zone. It’s in the northeastern states to basically control the spread and limit raccoon rabies from getting into Canada. It then goes from essentially Lake Erie straight down to Alabama, and that’s designed to prevent the westward spread of raccoon rabies.”
USDA’s Wildlife Services program is distributing millions of vaccine baits this year using airplanes, helicopters, vehicles and bait stations depending on the area.
“As far as the raccoon variant itself goes, it’s only in the Eastern US, and our goal is to prevent it from getting into the Middle America, and certainly we don’t want it to get to the West Coast because of the increase in raccoons with humans, and it causes more exposures to humans and to domestic animals. A lot of people feed their pets outside and that can bring raccoons up on the porch to eat the cat food and stuff like that.”
USDA says rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, but it is preventable with prompt treatment after exposure.
