Rabies

A raccoon captured last Thursday at Neshaminy Senior High School has tested positive for rabies, prompting Middletown's animal-control officer to ask that students be kept out of the wooded area behind the school. The officer, Dan Belsky, said he was called to Neshaminy Senior High School at 6 a.m. last Thursday. When Belsky arrived at the school, he said, he saw a raccoon in the parking lot that was staggering and acting drunk - a sign that the animal might be rabid. The raccoon also emitted a decaying odor, another sign of rabies, he said.

A rabbit tested for rabies after biting a 2-year-old Jenkintown boy did not carry the disease, health officials said last week. Tests on the rabbit were completed Thursday at the state Board of Health's lab in Lionville, said Charles Gray, Jenkintown's health officer. Gray called for tests after the rabbit bit the boy about 9:45 a.m. May 19, when the child wandered into a neighbor's back yard in the 100 block of Walnut Street. The rabbit bit an index finger as the boy reached into an open hutch, Jenkintown police said.

Alert thinking by the owner of a pet supply store in Tredyffrin Township prevented a possible case of rabies to one of his employees who was bitten recently by a stray cat. The employee, Michael Moran, 19, of Malvern, was bitten on the hand Nov. 24, went to his physician the same day for a tetanus shot and is undergoing the rabies vaccine series. "He didn't miss a day of work or school and he is fine," Bill Braxton, owner of Braxton's, on Lancaster Avenue near Sugartown Road, said Monday in recounting the incident.

The first case of rabies in Radnor Township this year has been reported, and the health officer has warned residents to keep their pets away from wild animals. Agnes M. "Ginger" Heim, the health officer, told commissioners Monday night that a dog had been bitten by an infected raccoon last week in the Morningside Circle area of the township. The pet's owner destroyed the raccoon, and a laboratory test disclosed the wild animal was infected with rabies. The fate of the dog and its owner's identity were not disclosed.

"This one's got Martian blood. " Ray Buchanan did not sound frustrated, even though he and his co-worker, Debbie Fagley, had been trying for 10 minutes to draw a blood sample from an anesthetized raccoon lying like a furry, clawed blob on their Chevy S-10 tailgate. The humans' hands, sheathed in thin rubber gloves, were growing numb in the early March cold of Pennypack Park. "We usually put out signs on cold nights telling the raccoons not to get in the traps, but they don't read very well," Buchanan said, his Alabama drawl as thick as a raccoon's fur. Buchanan and Fagley are part of a team of technicians assembled by The Wistar Institute, the biomedical research organization hired by the city to combat a raccoon rabies epidemic.

Nearly all of Burlington County is now in an alert zone for rabies since two raccoons found in Delran tested positive for the disease, according to Burlington County public health coordinator Walter Trommelen. The raccoons were caught separately on May 11 and May 13, Riverfront animal control officer Patricia Williams said. Williams captured one raccoon on Notre Dame Drive and took it to the Burlington County animal shelter in Burlington City, where it was euthanized and tested for rabies.

Easttown Township is determined to fight rabies. The Easttown Board of Supervisors has approved a policy proposed by the Police Department that sets forth proper methods for disposing of wild animals found by homeowners on their properties. Any animal suspected of having bitten a person or another animal should be turned over to the Easttown Police, who will notify the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. If the animal has bitten a human, the animal's carcass will be sent to the State Health Department in Lionville.

The Camden County health department has confirmed that a skunk picked up Nov. 5 in Voorhees has tested positive for rabies. A homeowner exposed to the skunk's salvia has started treatment. His dog, whose vaccination was current, also was treated. County officials urged residents to keep pet vaccinations current, avoid direct contact with unfamiliar animals, and avoid leaving open garbage cans or litter outside. Residents also should keep children and pets from making contact with wild animals.

A Gloucester Township family is being treated for exposure to rabies after taking in a sick stray kitten that died a day later, Camden County health officials said Friday. The unidentified family of two adults and two children found the kitten Tuesday night and tried to nurse it back to health, the officials said in a statement. But the kitten died Wednesday night, and a township animal control officer who picked it up arranged to have it tested for rabies the next morning. Test results came back positive Friday, and officials told the family members they would have to receive rabies prophylaxis shots because of their exposure to the animal.

A Gloucester Township family is undergoing medical treatment after taking in an ill, stray kitten that died 24 hours later of rabies, Camden County health officials said Friday. The unidentified family of two adults and two children found the kitten Tuesday night and tried to nurse it back to health, officials said in a statement. But the kitten died Wednesday night and a township animal control officer who picked it up arranged to have it tested for rabies the next morning. The results came back positive Friday, and officials informed the family they would have to receive rabies prophylaxis shots because of their exposure to the animal.

The Camden County health department has confirmed that a skunk picked up Nov. 5 in Voorhees has tested positive for rabies. A homeowner exposed to the skunk's saliva has started treatment. His dog, whose vaccination was current, also was treated. County officials urged residents to keep pet vaccinations current, avoid direct contact with unfamiliar animals, and avoid leaving open garbage cans or litter outside. Residents also should keep children and pets from making contact with wild animals.

13 unions to skip 2012 convention WASHINGTON - Thirteen labor unions say they plan to boycott the Democratic Party's national political convention next year in North Carolina, a state without unionized hotels for candidates and delegates. "The labor movement has been a consistent and reliable supporter of the Democratic Party," Mark Ayers, president of the AFL-CIO's building-trades unit, said in an Aug. 9 letter to Democratic National Committee Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

A beaver suspected of biting three people around Pennypack Creek has tested positive for rabies, state officials said Friday. The attacks occurred between Bustleton Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia, and the public is urged to avoid the area while authorities search for any other infected beavers, officials said. Authorities ask anybody seeing beavers or other mammals acting suspiciously to notify the Pennsylvania Game Commission at 610-926-3136 or local law enforcement.

Philadelphians contending with crime and troubled public schools have a new concern: rabid beavers. The state Game Commission announced yesterday that a rabies test came back positive for a beaver blamed for attacking a couple and a child in recent days along a city waterway. The location at Pennypack Creek in the city's northeastern region was a surprise, although Philadelphia is flanked by two major rivers and various smaller tributaries. "It's not that beavers are not susceptible, as all mammals are susceptible, to rabies," said commission spokesman Jerry Feaser.

A beaver suspected of biting three people around Pennypack Creek has been positively tested for rabies, state officials said Friday. The attacks occurred between Bustleton Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia and the public is urged to avoid the area while authorities search for any other infected beavers, officials said. A beaver was captured and killed Thursday near where a child was bitten. The carcass was tested at the University of Pennsylvania's New Bolton Center in Chester County and the animal tested positive for the rabies virus, officials said.

The memo from state health officials went out last month to some Pennsylvania veterinarians. The news about rabies, it said, was "not good. " For the third straight year, Pennsylvania will likely top all other states in reported cases of rabies in domestic animals. Through November, the state reported 70 cases, surpassing its 2009 total of 65. "I am fairly sure our title will be held for a third year running of most rabid domestic animals in the U.S.," a regional veterinarian with the state's Department of Agriculture said in the memo.

Brownie, one of two pit bulls that savagely attacked 10-year-old Philip Sheriff in Frankford on Sunday, could come home before the victim. Philip, who remains sedated after two operations to reconnect nerves and tissue in his right arm, is not expected to return home for three weeks, said his grandfather, Martin Sheriff, 69, of Cottage Street near Haworth. The elder Sheriff said that Dr. Wellington Davis III at St. Christopher Hospital for Children told him that doctors had saved Philip's arm but that he would need more care.