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1993 Rabies Annual Summary

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• A Human Death
• Tests Conducted
• Raccoon Outbreak Means a Banner Year
• Rabies in Other Species

A Human Death

The first human rabies death in New York State since 1954 occurred during the summer of 1993. Rabies was not initially suspected as the cause of the July 11 death of an eleven-year-old Sullivan County girl.

A formalin preserved sample was submitted for rabies testing only after a hospital pathologist saw suspicious particles upon routine postmortem microscopic examination weeks later. Irrefutable evidence of rabies infection was demonstrated at the Rabies Laboratory on August 6. The child had no history of a bite from a rabies-suspect animal, but genetic analysis performed at CDC identified the responsible strain of rabies virus as one that is commonly isolated from a migratory species of bat.

The case overshadows the other remarkable rabies-related statistics for the year and serves as a tragic reminder that rabies is still a fatal infection of man when not prevented.

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Tests Conducted

The rabies laboratory examined 11,896 animals in 1993, 32% greater than the 8,997 tested in 1992 and 164% greater than the average for the previous five-year period. Raccoons accounted for 33% of the animals examined. Cats constituted 25% of all animals examined and 67% of the domestic animals tested. Bites to humans had been reported in 2880 (24%) of all animals submitted for testing, non-bite human contact in 3838 (32%), and contact with a domestic animal in 5170 (43%). The laboratory also tested 2227 animals with no reported contact, accounting for 19% of all examinations.

Rabies was confirmed in 2,746 animals in the state in 1993 exceeding the record breaking 1992 total of 1,761 by 56%. Overall, 23% of the 11,896 animals examined were rabid. Among the 7,479 wild animals tested, 2,668 (36%) were rabid. Raccoons accounted for 2,369 (89%) of those cases. Other rabid wildlife included 162 skunks, 57 bats, 20 deer, 19 woodchucks, 17 red foxes, 16 grey foxes, 3 beaver, 2 coyotes, and 2 opossum.

Among 4,417 domestic animals tested, 79 (1.8%) were rabid. Cats accounted for 48 (62%) of those cases. Other rabid domestic animals included 18 cattle, 7 dogs, 4 horses, 1 pig and 1 goat. The much greater incidence of rabies in cats than in dogs in 1993 is consistent with the trend observed throughout the areas affected by the mid-Atlantic raccoon rabies outbreak.

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Raccoon Outbreak Means a Banner Year

The vast majority (97.4%) of the year's animal rabies cases were associated with the raccoon rabies outbreak. There were also 13 cases associated with the red fox rabies outbreak in northeastern New York, and 57 rabid bats.

By year's end the raccoon rabies outbreak had affected 456 towns in 49 counties, an increase of 13 counties since the close of 1992. The disease spread 25-40 miles north and east from the location of the 300 mile front at the end of 1992. This outbreak now extends west to the Niagara River, north to Lake Ontario and the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, and east to our boundaries with Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont.

There were 3,959 raccoons examined in 1993: 32% were submitted because of human contact and 50% had reported contact with one or more dogs. Of all raccoons tested 2,369 (60%) were infected with rabies. Among the 1,255 raccoons tested with reported human contact, 57% were rabid. Among the 2,285 that had contact with a domestic animal, 67% were rabid.

The 837 confirmed rabid animals in Albany County in 1993 accounted for 30% of the state total. This is greatly disproportionate relative to its geographic area and its human population. Factors contributing to this phenomenon include (i) the location of the state's rabies diagnostic laboratory within the county; (ii) the field activities of the Department of Environmental Conservation's Wildlife Pathology Unit in the county; (iii) the existence of active animal control units in most towns in the county; and (iv) the concurrent spread of the disease into Albany County from the north, west and south, resulting in most of the county reaching the epizootic stage of the outbreak during 1993.

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Rabies in Other Species

Foxes

The red fox rabies outbreak that had previously been affecting three northeastern counties waned in 1993: the 13 cases confirmed during the year occurred prior to April 2. However, the disease is still being reported in fox populations in adjacent areas of Quebec and Vermont.

Bats

Rabies in bats was characteristically widespread across the state, with the 57 cases occurring in 43 towns in 28 counties. Big brown bats accounted for 830 (64%) of the 1,296 bats examined and 51 (89%) of the 57 rabid bats. Rabies was confirmed also in 3 little brown bats, 2 hoary bats, and 1 silver-haired bat. Overall, 4.4% of tested bats were rabid, while rabies was confirmed in 6.1% of big brown bats and 0.9% of little brown bats examined. There were no statistically significant departures in the incidence or prevalence of rabies in bats in 1993 when compared to 1992 or the previous 5 year period. Among the 57 rabid bats, 20 had reported human contact, 20 contact with a cat, and 1 1 contact with a dog.

Deer

Rabies was confirmed in 20 deer in the state during the year, including 18 wild whitetail deer and 2 captive Sika deer (farm- bred for meat). There had been 5 rabid deer in 1992 and 3 in 1991. The percent rabid among whitetail deer submitted for testing was 4.2% in 1991(n = 72), 6.4% in 1992(n = 78), and 6.2% in 1993(n = 291). All of these cases occurred in areas experiencing raccoon rabies. Among the 272 whitetail deer submitted during 1993 with a report of the circumstances of capture, 76 had been demonstrating some signs of illness suggestive of rabies: of these 18 were rabid. There were no rabid deer among the 196 that were submitted after routine hunter-initiated contact or captured in other circumstances that did not suggest abnormal behavior in the deer.

Others

There was an isolated case of cattle rabies in January in a Lewis County animal that had recently been imported from Ontario, Canada. The strain of rabies virus isolated from the cow was shown by monoclonal antibody analysis to be similar to the virus responsible for fox rabies in the vicinity of its Ontario origin. A rabid cat confirmed in March, also from Lewis County, had been recently brought into the area by a family that moved there from an area in Pennsylvania experiencing endemic raccoon rabies.

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