Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Current Issues In Rabies Prevention In The United States: Health Dilemmas, Public Coffers, Private Interests, Charles E. Rupprecht, Jean S. Smith, John Krebs, Michael Niezgoda, James E. Childs

Other Publications in Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease

Over the last 100 years, rabies in the United States has changed dramati~ally. More than 90% of all animal rabies cases reported annually to the CDC now occur in wildlife, whereas before 1960 the majority were in domestic animals. The principal rabies hosts today are wild carnivores and bats infected with several viral variants. Annual human deaths have fallen from more than a hundred at the turn of the century to one to two per year despite major outbreaks of animal rabies in several geographic areas. Modem day prophylaxis has proven nearly 100% successful; most human fatalities now occur in …