Rabies

A Baltimore city councilman is offering a $1,000 reward in hopes of tracking down by this afternoonthe owner of a pit bull that bit his 6-year-old niece. Kenneth N. Harris, who represents the city's 3rd District, said his family had 48 hours from Saturday afternoon to find the dog and test it for rabies. Otherwise, his niece, Dejae' Lee, will have to be vaccinated for the usually fatal disease. Police searched the Rosedale neighborhood in eastern Baltimore County where the child was bitten.

A RED FOX sunning itself in the backyard may be an interesting wildlife experience for suburbanites, but the animal could also be infected with rabies. So, too, could raccoons raiding the bird feeder for a nighttime snack, or the skunk digging in a porchside flower bed. These unexpected animal incursions should remind people of the importance of keeping a cautious distance -- and remind pet owners to make sure their dogs and cats get up-to-date rabies vaccinations. A bite from a diseased wild animal is fatal for an unvaccinated pet; the rabies virus rapidly attacks the nervous system.

Ten animals in Howard County tested positive for rabies last year, according to a report from the Howard County Health Department. The rabid animals included seven raccoons, two feral cats and a fox. The statistics mark a decrease from 2001 when 16 animals tested positive for rabies, according to Bert Nixon, director of community service programs of the Howard County Health Department. The number of cases in the county typically fluctuates between 10 and 15 animals a year. "It's endemic in most of the state, although some areas are worse off than others," Nixon said.

The Anne Arundel County Health Department issued an appeal for help yesterday in finding a Brooklyn Park man who could have been infected with rabies by a bat he killed in his home earlier this month. Charles Patrick Durham reported killing the bat Oct. 9 in his home in the 200 block of W. Edgevale Road and turned the animal over to the Health Department for testing. The bat tested positive for rabies, said Dr. Katherine Farrell, the county's deputy health officer. The department has been searching for Durham for days, Farrell said, but has been unable to contact him at home; his neighbors have not seen him. Farrell said officials need to interview Durham to determine whether treatment for rabies is required.

SUMMER MEANS spending more time outdoors, which may lead to more contact with animals -- domestic and wild. Unfortunately, this also means that people must be vigilant about rabies.To date, 58 cases of rabid animals have been reported to Anne Arundel County's Office of Animal Control. Also reported were 881 animal bites, compared with 618 at this time last year.Rabies is an infectious virus that attacks the central nervous system. It is invariably fatal if left untreated. The virus is generally passed through saliva.

A quarter-century ago, experts theorize, a rabid Florida raccoon either wandered onto a West Virginia-bound flatbed or, more likely, was relocated there by a hunting club. Whatever the vehicle, that introduction caused one of the most intensive rabies outbreaks in history. Once confined to Florida and Georgia, raccoon rabies is now entrenched across the entire Eastern Seaboard, north to Canada and west to Ohio and Alabama. In the nation's most ambitious attempt to eradicate rabies from the wild, federal and state officials are trying to halt the proliferation by dropping millions of vaccine-laced pieces of bait in a virtual moat from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico.

A horse from Anne Arundel County tested positive for rabies late last month, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture. The horse, Coupe de Harmony, was at the East Coast Barrel Bash competition in Harrington, Del., from June 19 to 21. It was euthanized by a Cecil County veterinarian June 26, said Dr. Phyllis Cassano, Maryland's state veterinarian. The Department of Agriculture has contacted most individuals who were at the horse show and have determined who was in close proximity.

Trisha Mercaldo never paid much attention to the rustling in the attic of the rambling farmhouse. But now she scurries downstairs at the slightest noise, worried that another bat is about to dart out and nip her.The 6-year-old has been nervous ever since she was bitten by a rabid bat Friday afternoon. In what public health officials and naturalists call an extremely rare occurrence, a bat flew out from under a couch and nipped Trisha's finger while she was sitting on the living room floor at her home in Jarrettsville in northwestern Harford County.

Joe Jackins couldn't imagine taking a day off from work to run though his neighborhood after a dog.But that was before Tuesday when a stray bit him on the ankle, deeply enough to draw blood -- and give him a rabies scare.Jackins, 49, the treasurer of an Annapolis air cargo company, never found the mutt and had to suffer a series of anti-rabies injections. He is one of eight Anne Arundel County residents getting the shots since Saturday after all-too-close encounters with a dog, two cats and a fox.The county health department distributed "Rabies Alert!"

A North Baltimore woman will have to endure a series of rabies shots after a raccoon bit her in her back yard. Elizabeth Knottrodt, 67, had planned a relaxing evening with a book Saturday at her home in the first block of Melrose Ave. Knottrodt said she was sitting in a mesh lawn chair around 5 p.m. when she felt what she took to be a playful paw on her back. "I thought it was the cat," Knottrodt said yesterday. "I reached around to pet it, and I felt a bite." Knottrodt said she jerked her arm forward and found a raccoon hanging from it. The animal refused to let go until her screams alerted her husband, Reinhard, who came running, she said.