Preventing Spread of Raccoon Rabies
West of North Carolina:
Oral Rabies Vaccine Program

Raccoon rabies first entered North Carolina in Alleghany County in 1990. Before then, bats were the major source of rabies infection to people and animals in the state. By 2005, virtually every county in North Carolina had recorded raccoon rabies.

The raccoon rabies epizootic has been associated with tremendous costs due to treating exposed and potentially exposed humans, pets and livestock.

Because the raccoon rabies epizootic is generally limited to states east of the Appalachian Mountain ridge, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture - Wildlife Services established the National Oral Rabies Vaccination (ORV) Program to keep raccoon rabies from spreading westward.

This goal is being accomplished through the establishment of a “vaccine barrier” that will run from eastern Ohio (beginning at the border with Lake Erie) down the Appalachian ridge to Mobile County, Alabama, ending at the Gulf of Mexico. Oral vaccination bait drops are scheduled annually for several North Carolina counties to fill in two gaps in the existing barrier – the French Broad and Nolichucky river basins. Tiny edible packets of the oral vaccine are dropped by plane, by vehicle, and by persons on foot in areas where raccoons are found to prevent the spread of raccoon variant rabies into Tennessee. In 2008, the bait drops were scheduled in portions of Buncombe, Haywood, Jackson, Madison, Mitchell, Swain and Yancey counties (see map*) in early October.

• Oral Rabies Vaccine – A Primer
• Oral Rabies Vaccine Questions & Answers
• About the 2008 ORV Project in N.C. (pdf*)
• 2008 ORV Bait Drop Map (pdf*)
• ORV Information for Health and Veterinary Professionals (pdf*)
• For additional information: USDA Wildlife Services Rabies Management Web site (www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/rabies/)

• Rabies information, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Texas Department of Health Oral Rabies Vaccination Programs (ORVP)

*Some resources are in a pdf format to make reading and printing easier. You may need to download the free software Adobe Reader 9.0 (or higher) to access them.

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