2000 Rabies Annual Summary
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Director, Rabies Laboratory
Richard Raczkowski:
Asst. Director, Rabies Laboratory
518-869-4527
Please contact us (518-869-4527) for data tables and image maps in an alternate format.
- Introduction
- Human Rabies
- Specimens Tested
- Rabies in Wildlife
- Bat Rabies
- Rabies in Domestic Animals
- 2000 Rabies Incidence Map (PDF 149k)
- 2000 Bat Rabies Map (GIF 31k)
- 2000 Raccoon Rabies Map (GIF 31k)
- Additional 2000 Rabies Data
Introduction
It was another remarkable year for rabies-related activities in New York State during 2000. New York again led the nation in animal rabies cases, despite recording the smallest number of cases here since 1991. Also noteworthy are the human death due to rabies of an international traveler in an upstate New York hospital, record annual numbers of rabid bats and bats examined during the year, three consecutive weeks of record numbers of samples received at the laboratory during July and August, and the first rabid dog in this state since November, 1997.
Human Rabies
A visiting professor was hospitalized in Warren County, just one week after arriving here from Ghana on September 22. His condition rapidly progressed to signs of encephalitis and classical symptoms of rabies including altered mental status, combativeness, hyper-excitability, dysphagia and excessive salivation. The patient died on October 9. A skin biopsy taken on October 3 was positive for evidence of rabies virus by immunofluorescence examination at the Wadsworth Center. Investigation disclosed that the patient had been bitten on the thumb and leg by his own unvaccinated puppy in Ghana in May, 2000. Genetic analysis at the Wadsworth Center of the virus isolated from the patient's saliva confirmed infection with a variant of rabies virus associated with dogs in equatorial west Africa. This was one of five human rabies deaths in the US during the year. The other four, and another in Quebec, Canada, were the result of infection with bat rabies variants.
Specimens Tested
There were 840 confirmed rabid animals in the state in 2000. This were 89 (9.6%) fewer than the 929 in 1999 and 24% less than the average for the previous five-year period (1,107). As was the case last year, the smaller number of rabid animals can be attributed to fewer confirmed rabid raccoons; the 419 cases in raccoons was 101 (19.4%) less than the 1999 total of 520. Nonetheless, rabies in terrestrial mammals as a result of the raccoon rabies outbreak was present in 54 of the state's counties. Rabies was identified in bats from 44 of the state's 62 counties. There were 13 counties with rabies only in terrestrial animals and three with rabies confirmed in bats only. Hamilton County of the Adirondacks, Manhattan and Queens of metropolitan New York and Long Island's Suffolk and Nassau Counties had no reported rabid animals.
The 10,038 animals received at the Wadsworth Center for rabies examination was the second greatest annual total in the laboratory's history (11,893 in 1993), 6.5% (615) greater than the 1999 total, and 9.7% (889) more than the average for the previous five-year period. The New York City Health Department rabies laboratory received 755 animals for examination, down from 942 in 1999, for a statewide total of 10,793, which was the greatest state total for 2000 in the US. Animal specimens for examination for rabies were received from each of the state's 62 counties and 903 of the state's 990 towns and cities. Fifty-eight species of animals were represented in samples received. Wild species accounted for 68.5% (7,396) of all specimens examined, and domestic species 3,397 (31.5%). The rate of rabies specimen submissions is always greatest during summer months, with 42.1% of all specimens received in July-September during the five year period 1995-1999. This pattern was particularly dramatic at the Wadsworth Center in 2000, with 51.2% (5,144) of the year's specimens received during the three summer months, including an unprecedented three-week period in late-July and early-August in which 2,219 specimens were received and examined! The Wadsworth Center examined samples from 10 human patients for the purpose of antemortem diagnosis of rabies and performed two postmortem examinations for human rabies. The NYC laboratory performed one postmortem examination for human rabies.
For the third consecutive year, bats were the largest group of animals examined (4,616), a sharp increase of 29.8% (1,061) from the 1999 total (3,555). Bats accounted for 42.7% of all specimens received for testing. There were 4,564 bats examined at the Wadsworth Center, comprised of 3,126 big brown bats (68.5% of all bats tested), 1,180 little brown bats (25.9%), 161 of the state's 5 indigenous non-house bat species, and 97 bats not identifiable to species. There were 1,321 raccoons examined, down 22.8% from 1999 (1,710), and comprising only 12.2 % of all examinations. The laboratories also examined 2,115 cats (19.6% of all animals tested), 924 dogs (8.6%), 555 skunks (5.1%), 462 rodents and lagomorphs (4.3%), 189 foxes (1.8%), 103 cattle (1.0 %), 368 other wild animals (3.4%), and 80 other domestic animals (0.7%). Among the animals received at the Wadsworth Center, 20.8% had reportedly bitten one or more persons, 18.9% had some other non-bite human contact, 32.3% had contact with one or more domestic animals, and 37.1% were non-contact surveillance specimens. Most of the non-contact specimens were bats found inside human occupied areas of homes in encounters for which it was difficult to determine the potential for human contact.
Rabies in Wildlife
Rabies in wild animals accounted for 95.5% (802) of all animal rabies cases in 2000. The rabies-positivity rate among all wildlife examined was 10.8%. Rabid wildlife included 419 raccoons (52.2% of all rabid wildlife), 210 skunks (26.2%), 123 bats (15.3%), 45 foxes (5.6%), 4 woodchucks (0.5%), and an opossum. For the first time since raccoon rabies spread into New York in 1990, there were no newly affected areas and therefore no epizootic front in the state, but the outbreak remained entrenched in previously affected areas. The incidence of rabies in raccoons fluctuated in independent cycles across affected areas, with an increased number of terrestrial rabies cases in 21 counties, a decreased number in 30 counties, and an unchanged number in 11. The rabies-positivity rate was 41.2% among all raccoons tested, 35.9 among raccoons in contact with humans, 41.2% among raccoons in contact with a cat, and 56.2% in raccoons in contact with a dog. The 37 rabid gray foxes were widespread throughout the area affected by raccoon rabies, occurring in 37 different towns in 22 counties. The gray foxes were associated with unusually effective aggressive behavior, even for rabid animals: while only 2.9% of rabid raccoons and 5.9% of rabid bats actually bit a human, 56.8% of the rabid gray foxes bit a person.
Rabies in Bats
The 123 rabid bats was the greatest annual total in the state's history, 4.2% greater than the 1999 total (118), and 43% greater than the average for the previous five years (86). The rabid bats included 109 big brown bats (88.6% of all rabid bats), 8 little brown bats (6.5%), 3 eastern pipistrelles, 1 hoary bat, 1 red bat and 1 bat unidentifiable to species. The rabid bats were geographically widespread, occurring in 97 localities in 43 counties. Overall in 2000 the rabies positivity rate among all bats tested was 2.7%, notably lower than the 3.4% average for the previous five-year period. Among house-bats, 3.5% of big brown and 0.7% of little brown bats tested were rabid. Seventy-one (57.7%) of the rabid bats were female, 49 (39.8%) male, and 3 were unidentifiable to gender. Six of the rabid bats were juveniles. Among the rabid bats, 24 (19.5%) had reported human contact, 25 (20.3%) contact with a cat, 17 (13.8%) contact with a dog, and 62 (50.4%) had no reported contact.
Rabies in Domestic Animals
There were 38 laboratory-confirmed rabid domestic animals in 2000, including 29 cats (76.3% of all domestic animal cases), 6 cattle (15.8%), 1 horse, 1 camel and 1 dog. Although there had been an average of 4.5 dog rabies cases annually in the state from 1993-1997, there had been no confirmed rabid dogs in 1998 or 1999. The rabid camel occurred in Rhinebeck, Dutchess County in September and was a pet that was infected with the raccoon rabies virus variant. Appearing in the Wadsworth Center's data tables are 13 rabid goats which were among 46 tested in a collaboration to verify laboratory findings in a goat vaccine trial and 2 rabid bats from Texas identified in a collaboration with a bat conservation and rehabilitation center.
(New York City data provided by Dr. Igbal Poshni, Director, Virus Laboratory, New York City Department of Health)