riley

Rabies kills ~59,000 people a year globally. At that rate, the United States should lose 2,500 people a year to rabies. But the real number is fewer than 10, partly because we've spent 30 years dropping fish-flavored ravioli out of helicopters over the Appalachians. Each one contains a rabies vaccine inside a fishmeal-coated block. Raccoons, foxes, coyotes and skunks find them by smell, bite through, and enjoy the treat. Four to six weeks later, they carry rabies antibodies. Enough of them in one area and the virus runs out of animals to move through. USDA Wildlife Services has been doing this this line since 1995. It runs roughly from Maine down through Alabama, and its job is to stop raccoon-variant rabies from crossing into the central US, where it has never established. A single course of post-exposure shots runs into the thousands of dollars, and every rabid raccoon in a suburb produces a cluster of them: the kid who got scratched, the dog that tangled with it, etc. US rabies prevention costs between $245 and $510 million a year and avoids over a billion in medical spending. Long Island is probably our best case study for this program. A $2.6 million baiting program eliminated raccoon rabies from the zone, and paid for itself in eight years on avoided shots and testing alone. The biggest question I hear about this is: what happens if my dog finds one? And the answer: nothing bad. This vaccine has been safety-tested in over 60 species at varying doses with no adverse reactions observed, regardless of how much was given. About 250 million doses have been distributed worldwide since 1987 with no documented deaths in wildlife or domestic animals. The most severe adverse reaction observed was upset stomach.