RABIES VACCINE WILL BE DROPPED AGAIN - Pellets Will Stop Westward Spread

(05/10/2003)

More specially equipped airplanes will swoop through West Virginia's skies dropping thousands of small, foul-smelling pellets. The pellets are used to prevent the spread of rabies in West Virginia. The drop will extend from Hancock County in the north to McDowell County in the south, along a 30-mile wide corridor down the center of the state. Calhoun and area counties experienced the drop in 2001. The pellets are part of a six-year-old federally funded program to eradicate the westward spread of rabies. West Virginia has been dropping the fishy smelling blocks containing oral rabies vaccine to halt the raccoon-borne rabies. The disease has reached epidemic proportions on the east coast. Calhoun is on the edge of the rabies spread westward. The program called the Raccoon Oral Rabies Vaccination Project. It was developed by the US Department of Agriculture, the Center for Disease Control and a number of state and local organizations. Raccoon rabies is present in about half of West Virginia's counties. To establish the location of the leading edge of the rabies front, the state depends on the public to report dead or strangely acting animals so they can be tested for the virus.

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