More than 300,000 doses of rabies vaccine bait will be spread throughout Allegheny County before the end of August as part of ongoing efforts to curb transmission of the disease.
Over the last week, county employees and volunteers have been walking and driving through residential areas, placing oral vaccines where raccoons are likely to find them, but pets and humans are not.
“We're not throwing it on somebody's front lawn. We're not throwing it on a school ground, on a sidewalk, anything like that,” said Jamie Sokol, who coordinates the Allegheny County Health Department’s baiting program. “So, they're placed very strategically. They're in wooded areas, storm drains, things like that.”
Several different types of vaccine bait are used; the doses distributed in Allegheny County’s central core might look like a small green ravioli or a ketchup packet covered in fishmeal or a sweet-smelling, waxy substance. Each bait contains a liquid vaccine that, once digested, allows the raccoon to develop immunity to rabies.
“Raccoons will eat anything, so you really need the scent to bring them to it,” said Brian Zahuranic, the rabies biologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, which has collaborated with Allegheny and other counties on the project for more than 20 years.
Most of the vaccines will be consumed between five days and two weeks after they’ve been dropped.
Allegheny County is one of the westernmost locations where raccoon rabies is found. Sokol noted that makes the area an important boundary that needs to be maintained. The program is an attempt “to make sure the coverage in our county is extremely well-covered so that we're holding that line and raccoons and the rabies variant is not moving westward,” she said.
Later in the month, residents might see low-flying, slow-moving helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes dropping additional doses in the county’s less populated areas.
Though the bait poses no threat to humans or pets, Zahuranic warned residents to avoid them, if possible.
“Just kick them into the weeds and they'll be gone in hopefully a week or so and everybody will be happier and healthier for it,” he said.
If the bait is in a location where pets or children could reach it, county officials suggest picking it up with a glove or plastic bag before tossing it into deeper cover.
The baits do not post any long-term health risks for domestic dogs and cats, but eating multiple doses could cause an upset stomach. If a pet does get ahold of a bait, don’t attempt to remove it from their mouth, as they could bite or expose humans to the vaccine. Contact a veterinarian if illness persists.
Humans cannot get rabies from the vaccine, but they could experience skin irritation or infection. Residents who come into contact with the bait or the liquid vaccine inside should wash their hands and any other exposed area of skin with soap and water. If a rash develops, contact a health care provider immediately.
“Most of our reported rabies cases in animals in Allegheny County are from wild animals, mainly raccoons. Anything we can do to reduce the amount of rabies in our raccoon population is a benefit to the county’s overall public health,” ACHD Acting Director Dr. Barbara Nightingale said in a statement. “The raccoon rabies vaccination program reduces human exposure to the virus and medical costs associated with it, as well as protecting family pets from additional vaccination, quarantine and possibly needing to be put down.”
The baiting will continue through Aug. 30.
