Rabies continues as constant threat in Polk
Polk County is no stranger to woodland creatures. The animals inhabiting the forests of the southeast live among everyone as if the trees weren't long cut down and their habitable spaces bulldozed over to accommodate the needs of humanity.
So it's not uncommon for people to sometimes run into a raccoon while on a walk down the Silver Comet Trail, or find a possum scurrying along the tops of wooden fences in backyards.
However with nature's invasion also comes a particular danger that if left unchecked is the most deadly enemy of all warm blood- ed mammals. And the rabies virus has no plans of retreating into past memory anytime soon.
As a mild and wet winter and warm spring got wildlife moving again, officials announced in May that rabies had once again been found in Polk County.
The deadly disease was found in a raccoon that had been spotted in Peek's Park in the heart of residential Cedartown on College Street. It marked the first case in 2017 in what officials are expecting to be a potentially busy year again in chasing the disease.
In 2016, nine cases of rabies were reported in Polk County. Several of those were in the
Polk County is no stranger to woodland creatures. The animals inhabiting the forests of the southeast live among everyone as if the trees weren't long cut down and their habitable spaces bulldozed over to accommodate the needs of humanity.
So it's not uncommon for people to sometimes run into a raccoon while on a walk down the Silver Comet Trail, or find a possum scurrying along the tops of wooden fences in backyards.
However with nature's invasion also comes a particular danger that if left unchecked is the most deadly enemy of all warm blooded mammals. And the rabies virus has no plans of retreating into past memory anytime soon.
As a mild and wet winter and warm spring got wildlife moving again, officials announced in May that rabies had once again been found in Polk County.
The deadly disease was found in a raccoon that had been spotted in Peek's Park in the heart of residential Cedartown on College Street. It marked the first case in 2017 in what officials are expecting to be a potentially busy year again in chasing the disease.
In 2016, nine cases of rabies were reported in Polk County. Several of those were in the downtown Cedartown area, one of which involved a local man who was bitten by a potentially rabid raccoon, and as a result of the bites had the preventative treatments for rabies and lost two fingers.
It's not a disease anyone wants to play with, and one that Polk County Coroner Tony Brazier said is lucky to have not taken a human life locally.
He's now working with a group of local officials including Kathy CoueyMiller, Environmental Health Manager for the Polk County Health Department, local veterinarian Dr. Todd Hughes, Polk County Animal Control Director Jeff Crawford and Sherry Powers, trying to figure out a way to get more people involved in the fight against rabies.
And it's a particularly difficult disease to fight due to how quickly it can kill its host.
Simply put, rabies is virus that attacks the body's nervous system, traveling it's way from the source up the nervous path eventually leading to the brain.
Whether it's the brain of a raccoon or a human, the disease is fatal.
Hughes explained the disease is especially tailor made to the mammal population in the Southeast, with hosts ranging from raccoons and possums to household pets and livestock animals.
"There's two aspects to this that people have to remember, and the first is that we're in an endemic area. Which means that it's in the wildlife population, and it's going to remain in the wildlife population for the foreseeable future," said Hughes. "We're not looking at defeating this in the next ten years... And it's host adapted. Primarily here in the southeast you see it in raccoons. In other parts of the country it's in skunks and bats. We also have bats here that can carry it too."
Rabies remains a worldwide problem, especially in countries with large populations of stray domesticated pets which easily move in and out of wildlife populations.
Here in the United States, Hughes said there's usually only two ways a human gets rabies: through contact with wildlife, or bringing it home from overseas contact.
"It's always around, and it's not going to go away," he said.
Couey-Miller, who has long been a part of the fight against rabies in the community, said she's sort of a regional expert on the disease. Her take is that for the most part, careless actions are to a large degree one reason why humans end up interacting with the wildlife population. She's seen many number of cases where raccoons will end up cornering people on their porches after they've left food out for stray animals or pets, or having gotten into garbage not well contained.
"All that being said, the one reason we see an increased number of cases is that we have a good system of reporting in place," she said. "We work really closely with Animal Control and other departments and Dr. Hughes to make sure that we're getting accurate numbers."
Feeding is only part of the issue. Interactions with wildlife that are acting friendly and then bite happen too, such was in part the case last year with the bite victim in Cedartown.
Brazier pointed out a case last year where a man was bitten in Cedartown by a potentially rabid raccoon and he didn't immediately seek treatment. The result of that, Brazier said, was that he underwent a number of rabies preventative treatments, and the bites on his fingers eventually became infected and had to be amputated.
Potential infection and interaction with rabies could be prevented if only people took corrective action on their own part to prevent wildlife from coming into homes, the group points out.
Hughes also made this particular point to drive home the reason why vaccination programs are so important for local pets: it's not just about protecting the family's furry friends, but also ourselves.
"Vaccination is really to protect the human population," he said. "It's the same reason why we vaccinate against diseases like measles or mumps."
When people don't vaccinate against potentially deadly diseases, ultimately people pay by contracting these disease. Outbreaks all over the country of diseases commonly vaccinated against in shot delivered in doctor's offices or health departments around the country are starting to return.
Much in the same way protecting children from disease is important, animals being vaccinated against rabies is important for the same reason. Pets are more likely to come into contact with the disease while running around in backyards, passing it along to their human owners once it has spread to the nerve areas controlling the salivary glands.
Hughes also cautioned against relying on all-in-one vaccination kits that can be purchased online or in local feed stores. He pointed out that it's Georgia state law that a licensed veterinarian has to provide the rabies vaccine.
The other option is a live baiting program, part of a national effort to combat rabies in the wildlife population. It's a program put in place by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, run through the Animal and plant Health Inspection Service.
Since 1995, the program has targeted oral vaccination efforts through bait, spread through an area in hopes that through tracking efforts, they can see decreases in the virus through wildlife populations.
However, limited resources mean that only certain areas are targeted annually. Polk County isn't likely to get organized efforts for live baiting for a long time to come, Hughes said.
Part of the problem is public perception, the group agreed. People have become complacent to rabies because they grew up in a time when it wasn't a prevalent disease, said Hughes. Yet the disease has been around in the wildlife population the entire time, spreading from animal to animal through the normal course of the food chain.
The good news is that even with higher numbers of cases on record, these animals are being found and reported and help in efforts to figure out how ra-