An Integrated Approach to Rabies Management

Dennis Slate, USDA, APHIS, Wildlife Services, Concord, NH

ABSTRACT: In the United States, rabies persists in several terrestrial carnivore species and insectivorous bats. Specific variants of the rabies virus are adapted to species (also specific geographic areas within the same species, e.g., unique variants occur in three distinct geographic areas in the striped skunk) which act as reservoirs for the rabies virus. In addition, spillover may occur from reservoir species to other wildlife species (e.g., woodchuck infected with raccoon variant of the rabies virus) that can serve as a vector for virus transmission; however, the virus has not become established within those species (i.e., for example, woodchucks are not considered a reservoir for the rabies virus). Given the broad distribution of many of these species in the United States and in neighboring Canada and Mexico, it follows that rabies impacts may occur locally, at the state level, regionally, nationally or internationally. To effectively address public and animal health impacts at each of these geographic scales typically requires the application of several steps and methods in an integrated fashion. The simplest, local scenario of a potential human exposure to wildlife rabies requires consideration of integrating methods ranging from exclosure to removal of the suspect animal. Additional key components of the integrated strategy include determining if access to the suspect animal is possible for laboratory rabies diagnosis. Adherence to formal contact protocols with animal or public health officials to ensure that appropriate medical or veterinary steps are taken in a timely manner is critical as well. At the regional, national or international scale, containment and elimination of terrestrial rabies in wildlife is a much more daunting, multifaceted task, requiring the integration of enhanced rabies surveillance, oral rabies vaccination, a range of contingency support approaches, effective post-vaccination evaluation procedures, economic and ecologic decision indicators, and other factors into a comprehensive rabies control strategy. To achieve success, expertise from several disciplines, including: wildlife management, veterinary and human medicine, economics, and others must be brought to bear on such complex, integrated programs of scale. In this presentation, I will use real world examples of rabies control activities at these scales to demonstrate the applicability of essentially the “IPM model” to rabies management in the United States.