The Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) is warning Wyomingites of the dangers of rabies as seasonal animal activity increases during the spring and summer. While there hasn’t been a noticeable increase in the number of rabies cases statewide, a rabies season is more noticeable during some periods of the year.
“It's more likely to spread in the warmer months, so I think we see an uptick in our positive cases anywhere from June through September,” said Dr. Emily Curren, state public health veterinarian with the WDH. “Those are probably our busiest months for rabies, but that's just because of [more] human interaction with animals.”
Despite more contacts with infected animals during the spring and summer, Curren said rabies can be spread at any time of year. Any mammal, including humans, can get rabies.
“We've had three skunks test positive in Sheridan County for rabies, I thought it'd be a good idea to try and get the information out there before we really see the uptick in our rabies season this year,” she said. “I really wanted to make sure that we were getting good communication out there and making people aware of what our highest risk species were in Wyoming.”
Skunks and bats since they are some of the most common animals that spread rabies to humans. It is spread through a bite from an infected animal. There’s an average of 20 to 30 cases of rabies reported in animals each year in Wyoming. Rabies is most often treatable in humans.
“I want to say [rabies is] 100 percent preventable but of course, there have been some very rare aberrant cases where people with immunocompromised conditions haven't responded completely effectively to the vaccine series, but those aberrations aside, it is almost 100 percent preventable to prevent rabies from happening in a human if they start this vaccine series after an exposure and before they develop symptoms,” she said.
Livestock and pets may also be treated if infected via a vaccine or a booster shot if they’ve previously been vaccinated for rabies. The disease is 100 percent fatal for wild animals. Once known as hydrophobia, rabies affects the brain and central nervous system and often leads to violent and unpredictable behavior in those infected with it.
Curren said that the public should be aware of situations where they may come into contact with an infected animal. This includes bats, which are responsible for about 90 percent of all rabies cases.
“I think [the] one and only rabies fatality that we had in Wyoming was in 2015, and unfortunately, that was a woman who did wake up with a bat on her neck,” she said. It had bit her and I think they just had no idea that bats were a high risk species for rabies, and so she didn't get treatment in time and unfortunately did die from that infection.”
Curren recommends that someone who is concerned or may have had contact with an infected animal contact a medical provider or the WDH to go through a risk assessment to determine whether they should seek treatment.
