Health care workers caring for infected patients may also be at risk, although there are no documented cases of transmission of rabies from a patient to a health care worker. Most wild mammals can get infected with rabies. The most susceptible animals include bats, raccoons, skunks, coyotes, foxes, and wolves. Rabies in domestic animals can be prevented by a vaccine. However, dogs, cats, and livestock can be infected if they are not vaccinated.
Cats currently make up most of the reported cases among domestic animals in the United States.
Human rabies has been decreasing in the United States since the early 1950s, due to the development of domestic animal control programs, and is now very rare. In California, rabies is well established in the skunk and bat populations. The number of reported cases of animal rabies in the United States has increased since 1966. Only the saliva or the brain tissue of an infected animal is thought to be infectious. Very rarely, humans can be infected with rabies through non-bite exposures in workplaces with high concentrations of rabies virus.