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Mammalian Reservoirs And The Changing Epidemiology Of Rabies In The United States, James E. Childs, John W. Krebs, Charles E. Rupprecht

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Vertebrate Pest Conference (1998)

The epidemiology of rabies in the United States has changed dramatically over the past few decades. Greater than 90% of all animal rabies cases reported annually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now occur in wildlife, whereas before 1960 the majority were domestic animals. The principal rabies reservoirs today are wild carnivores and bats, infected with many different types of rabies virus variants. Annual reporting of human deaths have fallen from more than 100 at the turn of the century to one to six per year, despite major outbreaks of animal rabies in several distinct geographic areas. Most …