Aerial, ground rabies baiting finished in city, region

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by Mike Sever

Record-Courier Reporter

Aerial rabies baiting took place late last week in northern Portage County and four adjacent counties.

A low-flying aircraft dropped plastic packets containing raccoon rabies vaccine in rural Hiram, Nelson and Mantua townships.

Earlier this week, teams from the Portage County Health Department spread baits by hand in Aurora and northern Streetsboro.

"We had about 9,000 baits to distribute by hand," and a lot more by air, said Lloyd Groves, head of the health department's environmental division.

Aircraft dropped a small plastic sachet, about the size of a fast-food ketchup packet. It is white and rolled in a brown fishmeal glaze.

In built-up areas, the vaccine was inside a hard, brown fishmeal block, about 2 inches square. More than 360,000 baits were distributed in the five-county area.

Groves said people should keep their pets controlled so they can't go where baits might be.

"They won't make a pet or a child sick, but they shouldn't touch them. If someone finds a bait in the open they should pick it up using gloves or a paper towel and throw it into the woods," Groves said.

The baiting program is to curb the spread of raccoon-rabies variant that was identified in Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties in 2004.

In 2007, 19 rabid animals -- 10 raccoons and nine skunks -- were confirmed positive from Cuyahoga, Lake and Geauga counties for RRV, up from 10 rabid raccoons identified from the same area in 2006.

There have not been any raccoons that tested positive for rabies in Portage County, but there was one bat this year and two last year that tested positive.

If someone has been exposed to the vaccine or has questions about the baiting, call the local health department or ODH's information line at 1-888-722-4371.

E-mail: msever@recordpub.com

Telephone: 330-296-9657