World Rabies Day September 28

September 28 is World Rabies Day, a global health observance started in 2007 to raise awareness about rabies and bring together partners to enhance prevention and control efforts worldwide.

World Rabies Day is observed in many countries, including the United States, and is an opportunity to reflect on the efforts worldwide to control this deadly disease.

While rabies is not considered as big a threat to humans in the U.S., it kills millions of people around the world every year.

In the States, most rabies cases are found in pets and livestock, but the disease can be transmitted to humans from pets and livestock that have gone unvaccinated and contracted the disease.

That’s why it is vitally important to make sure all of your pets and livestock are vaccinated every year or every three years against rabies.

Here in Stephens County, this has been a good year in terms of cases of rabies in animals, according to Stephens County Environmental Health Director Shad Slocum.

“Rabies (cases) have been extremely low,” he said. “So far, we’ve only had two cases; one in a bobcat and one in a bat. Last year, I had roughly 10 and just about all of those were skunks.”

One reason for the low number of cases in Stephens County, according to Slocum is that the disease often appears in waves.

“So what it does is the disease will come through an area and all susceptible animals will get it, and then it will die back down. It’s an up and down kind of curve. It’s not going to stay low. It will run in a cycle,” Slocum explained.

But it was a different story in neighboring Franklin County where Environmental Health Director Louis Korff said it was a busy year for rabies cases there.

“The year of 2018, from January to current, has been a very active year for the rabies program for my office,” Korff said. “I have sent 27 specimens suspected of rabies in for testing. Of those 27 specimens, 13 were positive, which is about 50 percent. Now, the breakdown of that, I had three cats positive, four dogs positive, one bobcat, five raccoons, two skunks.”

Korff said from those three cats and four dogs, a total of 10 people had to get the post-rabies exposure series of rabies shots to keep from contracting the deadly disease themselves.

Now if you have not had your dogs and cats vaccinated against rabies, you can do so next week for just $5.

Tugaloo Animal Hospital in Lavonia will be offering $5 rabies vaccines October 1 through the 6th at their clinic on Vickery St.