Each month, new articles will be posted the website, and the old articles will be accessible from this archives. Rabies is a disease caused by a virus found in the saliva of infected mammals and is transmitted to pets and humans by bites, or possibly by contamination of an open cut with saliva.
Treatment is critical for a person who has been infected by rabies, because there is no cure.
Although rabies is decreasing as a human disease because of better rabies vaccination programs for pets and public education about the disease, it is still a disease of significant public health concern. In recent years, there have been over 8,000 animals, most of them wild, diagnosed as having rabies in the United States. Skunks, bats, raccoons, foxes, cats, dogs and some farm animals are most likely to get and pass along rabies. Rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits are rarely infected. Rabies does not occur in reptiles, amphibians, fish, birds and insects.