Rabies

There are few deaths from rabies in the United States. Between 1980 and the middle of 1994, a total of 19 people in the United States died of rabies, far fewer than the 200 Americans killed by lightning, to give one example. Eight of these cases were acquired outside the United States. Eight of the 11 cases contracted in the United States stemmed from bat-transmitted strains of rabies.

Internationally, more than 33,000 people die annually from rabies, according to the World Health Association. A great majority of cases internationally stem from dog bites. Different countries employ different strategies in the fight against rabies. The United States depends primarily on vaccination of domestic animals and on immunization following exposure to possibly rabid animals. Great Britain, in which rabies has never been established, employs a strict quarantine for all domestic animals entering the country.

Continental Europe, which has a long history of rabies, developed an aggressive program in the 1990s of airdropping a new vaccine for wild animals. The vaccine is mixed with pellets of food for red foxes, the primary carrier there. Public health officials have announced that fox rabies may be eliminated from western Europe by the end of the decade. The World Health Organization is also planning to use the vaccine in parts of Africa.

Though the United States have been largely successful in controlling rabies in humans, the disease remains present in the animal population, a constant reminder of the serious threat rabies could become without successful prevention efforts.