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The US Is Tracking 14 Potential Rabies Outbreaks in 20 States
- SilverElfin 1y agoScary. This site has useful information about rabies and the treatment but other articles say more about the outbreaks. So far there is no pattern. It spans the entire country, east coast to west coast to Alaska. The animals involved have no pattern either.
- leptons 1y agoRising global temperatures will likely lead to increased pathogen activity.
- seemaze 1y agoCurious why that is?
- leptons 1y agoYou could do a simple google search and find hundreds of articles. Here's a few... https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/experts-warn-climate-change-will-fuel-spread-of-infectious-diseases-/2024/03 https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/experts-warn-clima... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11138229/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11138229/ https://www.preventionweb.net/news/more-common-enemy-how-climate-change-spreads-diseases-and-makes-them-more-dangerous https://www.preventionweb.net/news/more-common-enemy-how-cli...
- jayd16 1y agoAre the states a secret or something? Why say that and not list the locations?
- 12_throw_away 1y agoHere's an article from late August with some detail [1], including the affected states: New York, Massachusetts, Alaska, Arizona, California, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon and Vermont. I can't find anything about it on the CDC website though. Edited to add another charming detail from the article: "A 2023 study published in the journal Vaccine found in a nationally representative sample of Americans that nearly 40% believed canine vaccines were unsafe and 37% believed that vaccines could lead their dogs to develop cognitive issues, such as autism." [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/rabies-outbreaks-rising-us-deaths-vaccine-rcna227771 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/rabies-outbreaks-...
- mulmen 1y agoIs autism a thing for dogs? I have literally never thought about this but I guess it could be a thing.
- MathMonkeyMan 1y agoSocially awkward dog prefers not to dog.
- mulmen 1y agoSocial awkwardness and autism are not the same thing.
- sellmesoap 1y agoIt's just the excuse elon musk and bill gates use to excuse their social foibles. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
- mulmen 1y agoSocial awkwardness is not a medical condition. It may be that ASD leads to social awkwardness but that doesn’t mean social awkwardness is ASD.
- izend 1y agoI'm surprised they don't mention bats, every summer night they fly within a foot of my head and some poor guy died on Vancouver Island, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rabies-death-bc-vancouver-island-bat-1.5213460 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rabies-death...
- golf1052 1y agoThey mention bats multiple times in the article >In the United States ... contact with infected bats is the leading cause of human rabies deaths. > The same goes for people planning to ... explore caves in regions where rabid bats have been. >The clearest example is someone who has been bitten by a wild dog, bat, fox, raccoon or other animal known to carry rabies. If someone had direct contact with a bat — for instance, waking up to find a bat in the room — this is also considered a possible exposure unless a bite or scratch can be definitively ruled out. ... If you find a dead bat, do not throw it away. Do not touch it or allow other people or pets to touch it. Instead, call animal control so that the bat can be tested. >In addition, try to prevent bats from getting inside your home through windows, chimneys or other holes.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- some_guy_nobel 1y agoThis must be an LLM/bot account as bats were listed multiple times throughout the article...
- izend 1y agoNo sorry, I just missed it...
- naet 1y agoFrom the related articles: https://www.accuweather.com/en/health-wellness/kissing-bug-disease-is-here-to-stay-in-the-us-experts-say-heres-why-its-spreading/1816508 https://www.accuweather.com/en/health-wellness/kissing-bug-d... Chagas disease is the one that scares me, since it seems easy to contract and not know it. Rabies is definitely more lethal but hopefully you could recognize the exposure event and get treated.
- southernplaces7 1y agoWorth noting that many human cases of rabies infection involve bat bites, which (especially from vampire bats) can be hard to notice at all if they happened very suddenly or while you were asleep. The scarier thing is that once the virus is inside you, the arrival of symptoms can only mean that it's already too late for prophylaxis. I remember the case of a woman in California, a teacher, who picked up a stunned bat that had accidentally flown into her school room one day. While she carried it over to the window to release it, the bat bit her without her even noticing. Weeks later she was diagnosed with rabies and died soon after. Only after the diagnosis did anyone make the connection to the incident with the little bat. Just found a link, to confirm I'd remember the essential details right. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-teacher-dies-bitten-bat-classroom/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-teacher-dies-bitten-... Edit: As for chagas, it's scary but not something worth blowing too far out of proportion either. I live in a country where chagas is endemic and even here it's exceptionally rare outside of deeply rural areas with lots of poverty and extremely low quality housing. The housing is a key transmission factor actually, since the bug tends to infect people with the parasite while they sleep, and it more easily enters barely-together rural shacks than it does properly built houses and apartments.
- bawolff 1y ago> six people have died from rabies nationwide since September 2024, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson confirmed to CNN. In addition, the CDC is tracking 14 potential outbreaks in 20 states, So is that high or low? It would be useful to know what the median and max cases per year has been over the last few decades. 14 potential doesn't sound that bad if we're investigating them out of an abundance of caution. --- Edit: to semi-answer my own question, according to https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reported-rabies-deaths?tab=line&time=earliest..2021&country=~USA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/reported-rabies-deaths?ta... there were 7 deaths in 2011. So we are in a decade high, but with the numbers being so low in general seems like it might just be statistical noise.
- cperciva 1y agoAccording to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, "about 1-3 human rabies cases are reported in the US each year": https://www.nfid.org/infectious-disease/rabies/ https://www.nfid.org/infectious-disease/rabies/ I would say that 6 deaths is definitely high compared to 1-3 cases.
- Retric 1y ago1-3 cases is nearly equivalent to 1-3 deaths. Rabies is almost 100% lethal after symptoms develop, and we don’t count people exposed who don’t develop symptoms as a rabies case.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cameldrv 1y agoIn recent history, most all of the rabies cases in the U.S. have been from infections acquired in other countries. The fact that there are outbreaks at all is concerning and suggestive of an immunity tipping point being approached.
- darkamaul 1y agoThe short-term effects of relaxing vaccine requirements won’t be obvious right away, but the consequences will likely compound over time. I don’t know how much time of lower coverage it will take before we start to see measles, rabies, or others become regular problems again. If you’re traveling, it’s more important than ever to make sure your own vaccines are fully up to date. And if you’re in a high-risk group, the US may not be the safest destination in the near future.
- timr 1y ago> The short-term effects of relaxing vaccine requirements won’t be obvious right away, but the consequences will likely compound over time. I don’t know how much time of lower coverage it will take before we start to see measles, rabies, or others become regular problems again. Whatever you think of the current HHS leadership, pet dogs and wild animals are not getting rabies from unvaccinated humans.
- portaouflop 1y agoBut they get it from unvaccinated dogs? The point is that many Americans don’t want to use any vaccines anymore even for their pets
- timr 1y agoCitation absolutely required for that claim. Even ignoring the fact in order to get your pet licensed anywhere in the US you have to vaccinate it for Rabies, the transmission chain doesn't work that way. When people get Rabies, they get it overwhelmingly from wild animals (or stray dogs in some parts of the world).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> The short-term effects of relaxing vaccine requirements won’t be obvious right away, but the consequences will likely compound over time. I don’t know how much time of lower coverage it will take before we start to see measles, rabies, or others become regular problems again. Rabies vaccines have never been required. You're only expected to get them after being bitten by a potentially-rabid animal.
- mmaunder 1y agoPlease stop posting this garbage. The US has 3 to 4000 animal cases per year and less than 10 human cases per year and the 6 cases is within the usual band. There’s no source, no detail, and the “14 potential outbreaks” are just business as usual with hotspots and alerts in those hotspots. The entire article is just a rabies faq stuffed with their ads. Actual CDC data: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/protecting-public-health/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/php/protecting-public-health/inde...
- bestouff 1y agoI wouldn't trust US health data nowadays.
- ycombigators 1y agoMaking America Gnaw Again
- oooyay 1y agoA lot of intellectually lazy comments on this post. Yes, there is a rise in rabies cases. In 2021 we experienced 2008 levels. The rise mostly has to do with domestic animal contact with bats: https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2022/p0106-human-rabies.html https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/media/releases/2022/p010... It is also true that 40% of dog owning households don't get their dogs vaccinated because they don't believe animal vaccines are medically necessary or effective. 37% of dog owners also believe vaccines can give their dog autism: https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2023/nearly-half-of-dog-owners-are-hesitant-to-vaccinate-their-pets/ https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2023/nearly-half-of-dog... There is no scientific evidence vaccines give dogs or humans autism.
- timr 1y ago> It is also true that 40% of dog owning households don't get their dogs vaccinated because they don't believe animal vaccines are medically necessary or effective. First of all, no, that's not what this says. The exact quote is: > according to the survey results, nearly 40 percent of dog owners believe that canine vaccines are unsafe, more than 20 percent believe these vaccines are ineffective, and 30 percent consider them to be medically unnecessary. In fact, when you look at the paper they're citing [1], they notably do not state if the respondent actually vaccinated their pet. Not sure why.... (EDIT: Actually, it's worse than that! I found a draft of the full text, and a full 84% of respondents vaccinated their pets for Rabies! [2] You can't make this stuff up. See my other comment for more [3]). Second, it's based on a YouGov (aka, a web survey) of 2200 people: > The survey was conducted between March 30 and April 10, 2023 among 2,200 dog owners who answered questions through the research sampling firm YouGov. I would be very hesitant to draw any conclusions from this at all. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X23010150 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02644... [2] https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/qmbkv.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/qmbkv.html [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45329845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45329845
- tzs 1y ago> Rabies can be found in many other wildlife species, including raccoons, skunks, coyotes and foxes It's worth checking with your state's health or wildlife department to learn which of those may have rabies in your state. There are enough geographical barriers to divide many of those kinds of animals into multiple groups groups that are have either no contact with other groups or only rare contact. You might say have two distinct populations separated by a high mountain range. You can then have a group on one side where rabies is endemic and a group on the other side with no rabies. A great example of isolated populations is Washington state, where no wild terrestrial mammal has ever been documented with rabies. Some still freak out on Nextdoor if they see a Washington raccoon wander through their neighborhood in the daytime, posting warnings to keep children and pets inside to avoid rabies. They are partly spooked by merely seeing the raccoon because they know raccoons are nocturnal and so figure something must be wrong with it to make it come out in the daytime. They've often heard raccoons mentioned as rabies carries so jump to that as the explanation. Raccoons are mostly nocturnal, but they will come out in the daytime to look for food if they aren't able to find enough food at night. In a place where the raccoons are barely getting by they may be out a lot in the daytime and people would get used to it. But at least around here they seem to be fine most of the year. It's only when they are pregnant or have young that they need to come out in the daytime, and that's not often enough for people to get used to seeing them.
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