September 30, 1999
Media covers rabies scare, officials happy about heightened awareness

Nick Hillyard
digital•iowa staff reporter
Drake University

DES MOINES, Iowa -- To most Iowans, the word rabies conjures up visions of Old Yeller; when Iowa was no more than homesteads and farmland, but with the recent media attention, people have begun to wonder: Is rabies becoming more of a risk?

Dr. Michael Buley doesn't think so. "Looking at the statistics, I think we're at the normal level for the year," said Buley, an epidemic intelligence service officer on loan to the Iowa Department of Public Health from the Centers for Disease Control.

Rabies is a viral encephalitis that causes inflammation of the brain and death in almost 100 percent of infections. Though very rare in the United States, and especially Iowa, rabies is the cause of nearly 40,000 deaths per year worldwide.

"One of the key factors of controlling rabies in this country is from controlling our pets," Buley said, noticing that vaccinating pets has drastically reduced human infections.

Although the last human death from rabies in Iowa occurred in 1951, the discovery of a bear cub believed to be rabid in an Iowa petting zoo raised awareness in the last month. Since then, officials have ruled the cub was not rabid.

Several scenarios constitute possible exposure to rabies, Buley said. Since the virus is transmitted through saliva, any bite that breaks the skin should be investigated. Even if an animal has been vaccinated against rabies, it should be taken to a veterinarian for a 10-day observation period. If there are no symptoms of the disease in the animal after 10 days, there is no risk. If a wild animal caused the exposure, it is killed and its brain is tested for the virus.

"Many cases in the last 10 to 15 years have been from bat strains of the virus, with no knowledge of exposure [to a bat]," Buley said. Due to this trend, finding a bat in your bedroom now constitutes exposure unless you are certain you weren't exposed. Being asleep, unconscious or not of the mental capacity to decide equals uncertainty and exposure. Lack of mental capacity could be a child too young to be reliable.

Two Des Moines residents recently dealt with this first-hand. After realizing a bat had been in their house for four days, Janell Johnson and Marta Cuervo contacted Des Moines Animal Control. Because the call was made after business hours, they were forwarded to the Des Moines police, who advised the women to catch the bat with a tennis racket or blanket and set it free.

In the process of catching the bat, Johnson's cat had contact with it. After consulting a veterinarian, Johnson had the cat vaccinated against rabies. On the advisement of the vet, Cuervo spent $1,500 on rabies vaccinations, because the bat had been in her room while she was sleeping. Had the police officer simply told them to keep the bat for testing, both vaccinations could have been avoided.

"I can't believe the Des Moines police weren't informed enough to let us know we should have kept the bat. That one piece of information could have saved us a lot of time and money," said Johnson.

The State Department of Public Health works with hospitals and county health officials to circulate guidelines on how to handle problems such as rabies exposure, Buley said.

Common carriers of rabies, or "reservoir species," vary from region to region. In Iowa, the big carriers are the skunk and bat. In the American Northwest, raccoons are big carriers, while Texas is currently having an outbreak in coyotes and grey foxes.

From Jan. 1 to Sept. 24 of this year, 130 animals have tested positive to rabies: 1 fox, 3 horses, 3 raccoons, 5 dogs, 9 cattle, 26 bats, 27 cats and 56 skunks.

Although these numbers have increased slightly more than normal in the last month, Buley said that was to be expected."All of the recent media attention heightened awareness, more animals were tested, so more animals tested positive," he said.

As Buley pointed out, the number of cats testing positive seems high. Because of the farming nature of Iowa - cats breed on farms and aren't vaccinated against rabies, Buley said.

No record of rabies vaccinations given to people has been compiled, but due to the number of animals tested, and petting zoo scare, it's likely the number of Iowans vaccinated is above normal.

"Public health workers have been very pleased with the recent media coverage of rabies. It does seem to exaggerate the risk, but it's really raised consciousness among Iowans and that makes people safer," Buley said.