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Keep pets, people vaccinated to avoid rabies, experts advise

By TAWNYA ERNST
Special to The Capital-Journal
June 15, 1998


WESTMORELAND -- When Ed Hamilton responded to a report of a skunk in a dog's kennel in Westmoreland recently, he knew immediately something was wrong.

As he walked into the pen, the skunk appeared abnormally docile. Hamilton, Pottawatomie County's animal control officer and owner of Hamilton's Nuisance Animal Control, sedated the animal and transported it to Kansas State University's Veterinary Diagnosis Lab, where it was determined that the skunk was infected with rabies.

The skunk was Pottawatomie County's first case of confirmed rabies this year.

Skunks are the primary carriers of the infectious viral disease in Kansas, but any warm-blooded animal, including a human, can be infected. Raccoons, bats and foxes carry the disease, which is transmitted by saliva through bites, scratches, open cuts and mucous membranes.

Hamilton urged the public to avoid contact with wild animals and strays and to vaccinate their pets.

"From kindergarten and on up, kids need to know, don't be playing with the strange kitty," he said. "And you need to be vaccinating your animals if you want to keep them."

Dogs, cats and ferrets should be vaccinated at three months, given a booster one year later and then vaccinated every year or every three years depending on the vaccine, said Dr. Deborah Briggs, director of the KSU Rabies Diagnosis Lab, which diagnoses all rabies cases in Kansas and in several Midwestern states.

Two forms of rabies exist, paralytic, called dumb rabies, and furious rabies. The skunk exhibited dumb rabies, Hamilton said.

Animals, especially wild ones, with dumb rabies, unusually are gentle and friendly. They might appear confused and wander aimlessly.

With dumb rabies, an ascending paralysis that typically starts in the hind limbs can be accompanied by other symptoms such as a drooping jaw and an extended tongue with extreme salivation, Briggs said.

Animals with furious rabies are prone to vicious unprovoked attacks, make odd noises and have extreme salivation.

Symptoms can appear within 10 days or up to five months depending on the point of infection. If an animal or person is infected near or on the head, the symptoms show up quicker than if the infection point is in a lower extremity or hind leg, Briggs said.

By Kansas law, stray or wild animals with rabies are euthanized.

If a vaccinated pet is bitten, it should be revaccinated immediately and observed for 90 days. If the pet then bites someone, it will be considered unvaccinated and may either have to be destroyed or kept in a lengthy quarantine.

If a dog or cat is unvaccinated or not current on its vaccinations, it should be destroyed, Briggs said. If the owner chooses not to have the animal destroyed, the animal must be quarantined for six months and revaccinated one month before it is released.

Persons exposed and never vaccinated must receive five intermuscular injections in the upper arm on the day of exposure and then three days, seven days, 14 days and 28 days after exposure. A rabies immune globulin is injected at the site of exposure on the first day.

Someone who has been vaccinated must receive two boosters, one on the day of exposure and the second one three days later.

Copyright 1998 The Topeka Capital-Journal

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