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A rabid-fire vaccine program

Raccoon snacks to include pellets

Wednesday, August 07, 2002

By Byron Spice, Post-Gazette Science Editor

Allegheny County's raccoon population is in for a treat today, as 29 teams from the county Health Department begin dispersing 1-inch-square snacks made of compressed fish meal and oil.

Dr. Bruce W. Dixon holds fish-flavored bait with an oral rabies vaccine packed inside. The bait will be spread in the area starting today in an attempt to combat raccoon rabies. (Bill Wade, Post-Gazette)

To humans, the bait might smell like an old fish-cleaning shed; for raccoons, that's ambrosia. The point, however, isn't to feed the critters, most of which manage to grow fat without much help, but to get them to ingest the oral rabies vaccine that is packed inside.

The baiting beginning today is part of an oral rabies vaccination program taking place in all or sections of 11 Western Pennsylvania counties this year, and of a national program intended to prevent the westward spread of raccoon rabies.

Of the 24 rabies cases reported in the county this year, 17 have been raccoons. Raccoons also are thought to be the main source of rabies for cats, dogs and other animals who become infected and, in turn, might spread the fatal disease to humans.

In one of the latest cases, a rabid cat surfaced at a party with about 150 people in Tarentum; 10 to 15 people, including some visitors from North Carolina, had enough contact with the cat to require preventive anti-rabies treatment, said Ihsan Chaudry, county public health veterinarian.

All communities in the western, northern and southern areas of the county and a few in the eastern portion will be baited over the next week or so. Low-flying planes also will distribute bait over sparsely populated areas of East Deer, Frazer, Emsworth, Fawn, Forward, Marshall, Pennsbury Village and Pine later this month.

Hand-baiting will begin today in about 50 communities. Among those, baiting is expected to last the rest of the week, and perhaps part of next week, in Bethel Park, Franklin Park, Hampton, Indiana, McCandless, Pine, Shaler, Robinson, South and North Fayette, Jefferson Hills, Collier, Findlay and Moon.

The Health Department has posted a list of the communities to be baited, and promises to post a daily schedule on its Web site at www.county.allegheny.pa.us/achd.

The hand-baiting teams will be wearing sky-blue T-shirts and will do much of their work from county cars labeled "Raccoon Rabies Vaccination Baiting Program." They will be placing bait in wooded areas and along streams and other water sources -- places the county's estimated 40,000 raccoons are most likely to frequent. In some instances, bait will be placed on private property.

The baiting will take about a week. All of it likely will be eaten within five days.

The intact bait might smell a bit, but it poses little health hazard to humans or pets. Still, people are advised to avoid handling it with bare hands. Contact with the liquid vaccine, contained in a plastic packet that is sandwiched within the bait, could cause skin problems.

People who find stray bait are asked to toss it into a nearby wooded area. Care should be taken with partially eaten or damaged bait, which should be put in a plastic bag and placed in the trash.

Pets might suffer some diarrhea from the fish oil but otherwise shouldn't be harmed if they eat bait. The Health Department nevertheless asks that pets be kept on leashes or otherwise confined while baiting is under way, and for about five days afterward, to keep the pets from eating the bait.

Byron Spice can be reached at bspice@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1578.