Rabid Dog Imported Into U.S., At Least 12 People Exposed

Bruce Y. Lee Senior Contributor
Health

Who let the dog in?

Since dog rabies has essentially been eliminated from the U.S. since 2007, it’s been really important to keep out of the U.S. any dogs who may be carrying the dog rabies virus. Remember a dog’s threshold for licking others tends to be lower than a human’s threshold to do the same, well at least most humans’ thresholds. It takes only one dog biting, licking, and doing unspeakable things to other animals to re-introduce this nasty version of the virus back in the country. And no one wants this bad news virus back in the U.S., except for maybe the virus. That’s why every case of a rabid dog has to be taken super-seriously.

Since 2015, only three rabid dogs had made it into the U.S. before this month. And now there have been four. At least four, that is.

On June 10, a shipment of 34 animals, including 33 dogs and one cat, came from Azerbaijan to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. One of those dogs eventually made it to a family in Chester County, Pennsylvania. This new addition to the household, though, soon went poorly. The dog began exhibiting strange behaviors and subsequently tested positive for rabies. As I covered for Forbes just four days ago, the dog rabies virus attacks the brain and central nervous system. This can lead to symptoms like fever, difficulty swallowing, over-sensitivity to light, restlessness, irritability, and “foaming of the mouth.” Eventually, seizures and paralysis can occur. As rabies is essentially 100% fatal once symptoms emerge, all of this unfortunately led to the dog being euthanized.

-snip-

CDC launches multistate investigation after imported rescue dog tests positive for rabies variant twice eradicated in U.S.

By Kim Bellware
June 19, 2021 at 4:53 p.m. EDT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched a multistate public health investigation after at least 12 people were exposed to a dog, imported from Azerbaijan by a rescue group, that tested positive for a rabies variant.

The dog was among a group of 33 canines and one cat that arrived at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on June 10. None of the other animals have tested positive, but all are considered to have been exposed, the CDC said in a statement. Travelers through O’Hare and those in the main cabin of the plane they arrived on are not at risk, health officials said.

According to testing by the CDC, the dog was infected with rabies before it arrived in the United States. Other animals in the shipment were transported to California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The dog, a 6-month-old mixed-breed puppy, was living with a family in Chester County, Pa., when they noticed it began acting strangely. The dog was later euthanized, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health. The rabies test, which can only be conducted by examining the brain after an animal is euthanized, showed the animal was positive with a canine rabies variant that is highly transmissible from dog to dog.

“This virus variant is present in a lot of other countries, and it took us decades to get rid of it here,” Ryan Wallace, a veterinary medical officer with the U.S. Public Health Service who also leads the rabies epidemiology unit at the CDC, told The Washington Post on Saturday.

-snip-