Published: July 19, 2008 07:49 pm            

Target: Rabies

PRINCETON — Mercer County’s No. 1 ranking for raccoon rabies in West Virginia is an unwelcome distinction, but federal and state officials are offering suggestions that may give people somebody to call when a rabid raccoon pays a visit.

In 2007, the county had the highest number of raccoon rabies cases (14) in the state, specialists told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph in June. At that time the county had six confirmed cases for 2008, again the highest rate in West Virginia.

At a county-wide meeting held in Mercer County that same month, representatives from the USDA and state Department of Health and Human Re-sources met with the public and county officials where they heard their concerns and requests for help in stemming the spread of rabies.

Health agencies have been trying to halt raccoon rabies’ westward spread by dropping fish meal containing an oral rabies vaccine into areas where the disease has not appeared yet. This barrier extends from Pennsylvania and through West Virginia, but Mercer County is east of this line. There are plans to drop baits in western Mercer County; however, this will not eliminate rabies, Christopher Croson, state director of USDA Wildlife Services, said. New infected animals would migrate into the county from surrounding areas.

One question at the June meeting, held at the Mercer County Health Department, was if counties could distribute the bait by hand.

Last week, Crosen said this could be possible, but it would not be “a very efficient use of funding.”

“A hand-baiting strategy on a county-wide or town level has not been proven to be effective, and it would be very, very costly,” he said.

Additionally, the option of providing traps to the county — for use by officials or homeowners — was also discussed at the meeting.

“One of the things I thought about afterward is the lack of county or town employees vaccinated against rabies; therefore, it’s a very large risk when a person calls in and has a strange-acting raccoon in their home or yard,” Croson said. “Even the county health department personnel don’t have vaccinations.”

Without pre-rabies vaccinations, anyone attempting to trap or handle a raccoon would be at risk, he said.

Croson said a request was forwarded by the department of health asking what service the USDA could provide on a county or multi-county level to help alleviate the rabies risk.

The USDA’s proposal, which was sent to health departments last week, is for the hiring of a rabies technician for a four-county area — Mercer, Monroe, Greenbrier and Summers — for a six-month period, spring through fall, when rabies is most prevalent, Croson said.

The technician would have pre-rabies vaccinations and all tools, traps and testing equipment provided by the USDA. Croson said it is expected that the technician could respond to any animal call inside the four-county area within 24 hours.

“They would be able to catch and test the animals for rabies,” Croson said. “They would test with our lab, and get results quickly. In addition, one of the biggest parts to successful rabies control is information and education. The technician would not be responding to sick-acting raccoons every day, and during that time would be going around to schools and businesses giving educational presentations.”

Total cost for the program, including the technician’s salary and all travel, testing and other expenses, would be $6,000 per county, Croson said.

Members of the Mercer County Commission were not available for comment Friday.

The USDA is still studying Mercer County’s raccoons; in fact, last Wednesday researchers finished checking the raccoon population inside Princeton’s city limits.

“This is the first time we’ve done an urban density study,” Croson said. “We do several density studies a year, and when several are finished we put the numbers together and see what we have. This is a way to gauge how many raccoons are in a given area or habitat. It helps determine the baiting rate.”

The study’s numbers should be compiled by mid August, he said.

Princeton was selected because of the interest the county has shown in the rabies program. It also gave researchers the secondary benefit of being able to test all the raccoons that were captured, he said.

In such density studies, raccoons are caught, then tagged and released to see how many are recaptured. In other cases, raccoons are caught, then euthanized for rabies testing, Croson said.

“I do know they are planning on following up this study with a rural study in the same (Princeton) area,” he said. The hope is that there are more raccoons in the rural setting than inside the city. A similar study for Bluefield is possible, but a future urban study may be done in another part of the state.

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

— Contact Samantha Perry at sperry@bdtonline.com

        

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