Georgia: Rabies battle on rise

Georgians should be careful, very careful, any time they or their pets have close encounters with wildlife.

Veterinarian Britt Schaffeld said it is very important that pets have annual physical examinations, one that includes vaccinations.

“Vaccinations protect both dogs and cats, and their owners, from infectious diseases,” Dr. Schaffeld said. “It not only protects the pet, it protects the public.”

Whether in the woods or a backyard, exposure to rabid animals is on the rise throughout Georgia.

“We are coming into closer contact with wildlife,” said Jennifer Moorer, spokeswoman for the public health district that includes Whitfield, Murray, Gilmer and Fannin counties.

Rabid animal deaths were largely unnoticed years ago, she said.

“Part of the rabies problem is that humans are encroaching on native habitat,” Ms. Moorer said.

Last year, 43 of the 386 animals that tested positive for rabies were found in Hall County, according to officials with the state’s Department of Human Resources. The population of that North Central Georgia county at the Blue Ridge foothills increased from about 173,000 to slightly more than 340,000 between 2000 and 2007.

This year, cases of rabies have been confirmed in Fannin, Franklin, Gilmer and Hall counties.

The most recent occurred last Friday when a dog fought and killed a rabid raccoon in Fannin County’s Mineral Bluff community. The same day, two separate incidents occurred in Hall County where a dog and a horse were bitten by rabid skunks.

It is raccoons that pose the greatest danger of spreading rabies, and for six years Northwest Georgia has been part of a USDA program that uses aircraft to distribute bait laced with rabies vaccine.

A total of 141,689 of these oral rabies vaccine-laced baits were scattered last October over Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade, Murray, Walker and Whitfield counties.

While efforts to reduce rabies among raccoons is important, health officials say it is even more important to regularly inoculate pets with a dead rabies virus.

When laboratory tests proved positive after last week’s encounter raccoon/dog, the pet was euthanized because its rabies vaccination was not current.

Without up-to-date rabies vaccination, owners have two options if their pet comes into contact with an animal that may be rabid: Either euthanize the pet or place it in quarantine for six months.

Dr. Schaffeld, who operates a veterinary medical center in Catoosa County, said keeping pet vaccinations current is also important for humans.

Contact with a rabid animal can mean an unprotected pet may be put down while the owner is put through a six-shot series of inoculations over a 28-day period, he said.

“Rabies is considered a 100 percent fatal disease,” Dr. Schaffeld said. “There is nothing more reassuring to a person that has just been bitten than to hear that the pet owner has proof of current rabies vaccination.”