- Hello Jeff - Another Rabies rarity and this, I believe,
is the first rat rabies in the US. As I have been saying over the past
two years, there needs to be monitoring of these rare rabies situations.
Genetic sequence of the virus is necessary. We may be at the brink of another
evolution in the rabies virus as happened in the 1970s.
-
- Everyone needs to be very watchful and have your pets
vaccinated against rabies. This is the one vaccine I do endorse. Since
there is no cure for rabies, it is far better to vaccinate a pet then to
chance dying in agony from this killer. It is also a terrible disease for
a pet to go through.
-
- Yes, I am against most other vaccines...except for Rabies.
I always advised horse owners at the racetracks to allow me to vaccinate
their horses. In Yonkers raceway, as well as Roosevelt on Long Island,
the barns had squatters...namely, skunks. In every barn there were skunks
and skunks carry rabies.
-
- Patty
-
- Story at:
- http://www.ratbehavior.org/DryBite.htm
-
-
- Excerpts -
-
- "Rabies from rats is very rare and has never been
documented in the United States."
-
- "Note that rats almost never carry rabies and are
not considered a serious rabies risk. Rabies transmission from rats is
extremely rare, not because rats have a dry bite, but because they almost
never carry rabies, presumably because rats do not survive the attack of
a rabid animal."
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
-
Comment
- Mary Sparrowdancer
-
- From my many years in working with wild animals, I learned
from years of study that ANY sort of a warm-blooded animal that had just
dined on a food/animal containing rabies, could be harboring the rabies
virus on their mouths or beaks for a very short time after they ate the
rabid animal or rabid food.
-
- This does not mean that rats are now rabid, nor does
it mean that we have a horrifying rabies epidemic in the US. What it possibly
means is that the bait from the US govt's rabies bait program--in which
the gov't has been dropping rabies in biscuits from planes in
various places around the U.S.--are being eaten by animals that find
the biscuits. In my opinion, rabies vaccinations are dangerous,
especially in wild animals as there is no clinical evidence whatsoever
to suggest that rabies vaccine will curtail rabies in wild animals.
The evidence points to the opposite - that wild animals can live their
lives with rabies, without exhibiting any symptoms. These gov't programs
of mixing rabies with live vaccinia are worse than dangerous. They
are sheer folly.
-
- mary sparrowdancer
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