Rabies Alert goes Statewide *Texas*
Rabies Alert goes Statewide
http://www.kcbd.com/Global/story.asp?s=3321207
> A warning from the Lubbock Health Department has now grown to a statewide
> alert, since authorities still have not found the woman who brought a stray
> puppy to the Lubbock Animal Shelter last week that turned out to have
> rabies.
>
> The dog was an Australian Shepherd Mix and looked like the puppy pictured
> right who was up for adoption at the Adopt-A-Thon a week ago last Saturday.
> More than 100 people "shopped" for pets that afternoon of April 30th and the
> next Monday the puppy actually went home with a family.
>
> No one was bitten by the puppy, but you don't need to be bitten to get
> rabies. Rabies can also be transmitted by saliva. The concern is there may
> be many more hands out there that pet the cute little puppy at the animal
> shelter last week, and they may have been exposed to rabies which is an
> illness which is almost always fatal.
>
> "About 98% of the time you will die. It is a very, very fatal illness in
> humans as well as animals. Once you do start showing symptoms at that point
> it is usually too late. So we really want to make sure that anybody that has
> had an actual exposure to that animal we have identified them and offered
> treatment to those people," says Kelly Northcott, Public Health Preparedness
> Coordinator.
>
> Early signs of rabies include pain, tingling, or itching at site of entry
> and then fever, chills, fatigue, muscle aches, and irritability. These
> symptoms usually show up between 30 to 60 days, but Kelly says the virus has
> been known to show up 7 years after the infection. That's why health
> officials are trying to find people, litter mates or any other animals that
> might have been exposed. The reason this effort is statewide now is because
> officials think someone might have dropped off the Australian Shepherd Mix
> on their way out of town.
>
> For more information, call Kelly Northcott at 775-2941
