IBM, EPA and Glaxo also received awards. In the 1950s this fatal virus, which infects warm-blooded animals including humans, reached epidemic proportions among dogs in the United States. Widespread pet vaccinations greatly reduced rabies among domestic dogs and cats. Now rabies is spreading rapidly among wild animals, especially raccoons. We had 106 confirmed cases in 1993, and 879 in 1997.
Many animals can incubate rabies for weeks or months without showing signs.
Clinical signs of rabies may include behavioral changes such as nervousness, hiding, incoordination, irritability, paralysis, frenzied aggression, and foaming at the mouth. Once signs of disease appear, death usually follows within days. In North Carolina raccoons are the animal most commonly diagnosed with rabies, but skunks, foxes, and bats account for a significant number of cases as well. All mammals can be infected with rabies and result in a risk to human health by exposing people to the virus. Though only a few people each year die from rabies in the United States, rabies virus associated with bats accounts for a large percentage of those deaths.