A Bait-and-Twitch Ploy

Canadians target Ontario raccoons for rabies vaccine drop

Using the theory of hitting them where they live, Canadian health officials are attacking the problem of a rabies outbreak among the raccoon population by dropping off massive doses of a vaccine "at home."

This week, according to C-Health, thousands of doses of rabies vaccine will be put into bait and dropped on areas in Ontario where a number of rabies cases have been reported. Rabies outbreaks among the raccoon population moved from the United State to Canada in 1999, and this is the second year the vaccine drop has been tried. So far, officials say about 40 percent of the animals in the drop area pick up the vanilla-flavored green bait.

C-Health says that raccoons are the target of the program because they are likely to live close to human beings. The effort is currently focused on a small area of Ontario where all 81 of the confirmed cases of raccoon rabies since 1999 have been reported.

The Cat Fanciers' Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have information about rabies.

Related Stories

No stories found.
logo
www.healthday.com