Similar situation at UC Davis. 3 yo race filly from Golden Gate Fields was brought in with what they thought was heat stroke. Rabies confirmed.
Wow, all these people in California who do not vaccinate for rabies! I don’t even know any vets or techs who are not themselves vaccinated. I guess I need to get out more.
Biggest reason I vaccinate for rabies is ME and family. Placing a bit into a rabid horse’s mouth and getting exposed to saliva either before or after a ride is reason enough.
Why don’t we vaccinate people against rabies? Seems silly to only vaccinate those people at “high risk”?
We had a bat get into our bedroom one night. I awoke to it and we eventually got it out. Since we were asleep when it first came in, we had to get the whole series of immunoglobulin and vaccinations since there was a minuscule chance we could have been bit. If we had captured it and got it tested we could have been spared all the needles. I wouldnt think twice about vaccinating my animals, even if it wasn’t prevalent in my state or county, since it is 100% fatal.
if you are exposed you can get the immunoglobulin shots which would save your life in the event you were bit by a rabid animal. It takes some time to progress so even days after exposure you can get the immunoglobulin. The vaccine is different.
People do get vaccinated. Those who work in a high-risk area (line or work, or geographic) often get vaccinated. Vets, cave explorers, anyone studying the actual virus, and it’s recommended for anyone travelling to a country where it’s prevalent and much more likely to be a contact issue.
ut that doesn’t include most of the world. Definitely not most of North America. The risk of exposure to start is so low, and the odds of not even knowing you were bitten or otherwise infected is incredibly rare.
we do
I am vaccinated for rabies due to my work in referral Vet internal medicine practice. 30% of our cases were neuro
It is highly encouraged for people who are cavers and adventure / 3rd world travelers ( which I also am)
heard a report on the radio this am, a big upswing of rabid bats in Washington state. 6 in one county (Chelan) in the last 4 months. This May a student at the UW in Seattle was bitten by a rabid bat.
I know they vaccinate “high risk” people - what I should have said was, why don’t we vaccinate everyone? Or at least everyone who lives in an area where rabies exists?
The risk in North America for the average person contacting a rabid animal is so, so low it doesn’t make sense, especially since starting the post-exposure protocol is a known and effective thing.
Rabies exists to some degree in all of the US.
yes even though one might be pre-exposure, titer + protected, you will still go through post exposure treatment.
99.999999…% fatal is bad odds.
the pre-exposure vaccine was very effective for me with a strong titer many , many years later. However, I remember the cost as been fairly high , not like a common tetanus or polio vaccine at all. This was with a special “bulk buy” via out state vet association.
The risk is low and the pre-exposure series is in short supply and very, very expensive - over $1000, usually, for the 3 shots. Whether insurance covers it or not is pretty variable, in my experience. People in high risk occupations (vets, vet techs, etc.) do get it, and as far as I know, all of the accredited vet schools require that students get it before they have any live animal exposures.
I had to get the pre-exposure series a number of years ago and it was an expensive & difficult process for my doctor to actually get it. At that point, it was in such short supply that he had to justify to the company why I needed it. My titer has remained high enough since then that I haven’t needed it again, so I’m not sure if the supply is still so small, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is and that’s keeping the price and availability out of the realm of possibility for people in low risk occupations.
When I was growing up in CT many, many years ago(!) nobody vaccinated horses. Dogs were always required to be vaccinated. Now, most stables and any event requires proof of vaccination. That means a vet certificate - self-vaccination is not recognized.
As an adult I worked in animal protection in CT. Risk of rabies was considered fairly low at that time. There had not been a confirmed case of rabies outside of bats in about 50 years. (And not a lot in bats either). Then suddenly we started seeing rabies in raccoons and then skunks and other wildlife. The explanation I heard (but cannot confirm) was that some guys wanted better raccoon hunting and there were not enough raccoons in their area. So they went to their friends place in another state (perhaps Virginia) and live trapped raccoons to hunt. They reportedly did the “restocking” for a while and apparently one or more of the animals had rabies and it quickly spread.
I occasionally had the “fun” job of taking dog heads to the State Lab to be tested for rabies. In one case a couple of kids were taking care of a neighbors Doberman who was not feeling well. The kids tried moving the food around to entice the dog to eat and it nipped one kid. Then it laid down and died. The vet called as they did not have a refrigerator to keep the head in (only a small fridge for medicines)and it could not be left out or frozen, so it had to be refrigerated somewhere else or transported 60 miles to the lab to be refrigerated over night there. As it happened I had just gotten a new (used) refrigerator that day. I picked up the head (wrapped in several plastic bags) and put it in my otherwise empty fridge until the next day. My mom called that night and asked me if I had gotten the refrigerator and had I put anything in it? :eek: Fortunately the dog tested negative.
More recently I know of one family that had a raccoon blunder into their garage. Their dog sort of attacked it (dog was no kind of hunter) and did have some contact. Animal control did finally capture the animal and it was positive for rabies. Fortunately the dog was vaccinated so just had to observe a quarantine. The family did post-exposure treatment for anyone that was home and came in contact with the dog. Not fun! I also know of a farmer in Orange County, NY who had a heifer bitten by a rabid skunk. That heifer and one with it were put down and the rest of the heifers (penned separately) were quarantined for quite a while. The vet wanted to make farmers aware of the risks since rabies in cattle can look like choke and the farmer would then put his/her hand in the cow’s mouth and really increase the risk of contracting the virus
G, as to Tennessee, we could get the vaccine several years ago but no longer. Not at the Co-op, TSC or the online suppliers. When I had a farm with multiple barn cats, I did have a vet that would sell me a vial and I would give the cats and horses the vaccine. It was a considerable cost savings for me, in the hundreds of dollars. Yes, I recognized that, legally, my farm animals were unvaccinated,but they, and we humans, were protected.
I wouldn’t ask a vet to do that now and I have far fewer animals. But they are all vaccinated:horse, dogs, inside only cat.
Even for developing country travelers (aka 3rd world), CDC only recommends rabies vaccines if you are camping, caving, handing animals regularly, etc. I also travel, and check the CDC recommendations for every country I’ve visited. So far, no recommendation for rabies for me. The rabies vaccine (pre-vaccine) is super hard to find - actually, a lot of the vaccines needed for 3rd world travel are hard to find and not covered by (most) insurance. So there is that…
And - it is hard enough to get many parents to vaccinate their kids for more common human diseases - so adding rabies to the list would probably get a lot of parents up-in-arms! Easier to vaccinate the animals that live with us.
I had a similar experience in middle TN when I lived there. For as long as I can remember, TN was on the list of states where you cannot ship to, but companies still shipped it to me anyway when I placed my order. It was available at Co-op, too.
Then maybe 4 or 5 years ago, I couldn’t get it anymore anywhere. Which was fine, I just started having the vet do it again. Even though you pay farm call + markup, it’s still a cheap vaccine. Plus, then it will be recognized and accepted if a horse is exposed.
I’m in California and there is no way I would pass on the rabies vaccination unless a horse had a life-threatening response to the vaccine. I’m reasonably certain that UC Davis considers it a “required” vaccination as opposed to reccomended. Skunks are the primary carriers in CA (pretty sure on that) and they are everywhere. I found a dead bat hanging on chicken wire wrapped around a tree in my horses’ paddock a few years back. Horses are so curious I have to believe they probably investigated it while it was still alive. The quarantine protocol alone is enough to vaccinate, because as another poster mentioned it’s basically euthanasia or a very long, expensive quarantine if your horse is bitten by something and you can’t prove it’s been vaccinated.
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