July 07, 2001|BY A SUN STAFF WRITER
Anne Arundel County health officials issued a call for help yesterday in locating a young man who was exposed to rabies through some baby raccoons that he and two friends found late last month in eastern Baltimore County.
Clinton Mallory, believed to be in his late teens, has been sought since Tuesday, when health officials learned that the animals had tested positive for the fatal disease. He had been living in the Brooklyn Park area, but friends and relatives have not seen him lately, said Carole Kauffman, a nurse who works for the county Health Department.
Mallory and his friends had put the raccoons in a small trash bin and taken them back to Anne Arundel. They brought them to the county animal control this week because the raccoons appeared to be sick.
Five Anne Arundel residents exposed to the raccoons have been given rabies shots, and officials urged anyone who knows of Mallory's whereabouts to have him call the Health Department at 410-295-3140.
Rabies can be prevented by the shots, which officials said have been improved and are not as painful as they were in the past. However, once symptoms of the disease begin, rabies is fatal, officials said.
"We always try to tell people it's not a good idea to take in wildlife as a pet," Kauffman said. "There are a lot of rabid animals out there."
