According to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, the United States is free of the dog specific form of rabies known as canine rabies. This does not mean all rabies has gone, only the strain that can be transmitted from dog to dog. It is still rife in the bat, racoon and skunk population and dogs and humans can still become infected if bitten by one of these animals. Chief of the CDC Rabies Program, Dr Charles Rupprecht, said that: ‘The elimination of canine rabies in the United States represents one of the major public health success stories in the last 50 years.’ ‘However, there is still much work to be done to prevent and control rabies globally,’ he added. The announcement coincided with World Rabies Day, but Dr Deborah Briggs, Executive Director of Alliance for Rabies Control said the CDC news should be seen as more than a ‘one day event’: ‘This is the first-step in a long-term effort towards human rabies prevention and animal rabies control globally.’ Over the last decades US state and local public health authorities have been ‘working tirelessly’ to prevent […]