Stray cat infected with rabies attacked at least one person on Staten Island; New York officials issue warning

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A stray cat infected with rabies recently attacked at least one person in Travis, and city officials now want residents to be on the lookout for other potentially infected animals, a spokesperson said. word of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). Friday.

A flyer distributed by the Department of Health shows a photo of a domestic short-haired brown tabby cat that authorities say had lived near Travis Avenue and Victory Boulevard for more than a year.

The leaflet recommends that anyone who had contact with the cat before May 2 consult a doctor. Additionally, there may be other infected cats or wild animals in the area, so anyone scratched or bitten by a wild animal should also seek medical attention. People whose pets have been bitten should also contact their veterinarian.

After authorities located the cat with the confirmed rabies infection, they caught it before later euthanizing it, according to the Health Ministry.

The person attacked received treatment after exposure, and no human cases of rabies have been reported in the five boroughs since 1947, according to the Department of Health.

According to the DOHMH, rabies is a deadly virus transmitted to humans and other mammals through the bite of an infected animal. The virus can also be transmitted if saliva or nerve tissue from a rabid animal gets directly into the eyes, nose, mouth, or open wound of another animal.

Most commonly found in raccoons in the five boroughs, only 600 animals have tested positive for the virus since the city began conducting surveillance in 1992, according to the Department of Health. Last year, only four raccoons and one cat tested positive for the virus, the Advance/SILive.com reported.

The city repeatedly set up bait stations with rabies vaccines in the island’s wooded and swampy areas last year.

Symptoms of rabies usually begin to appear one to three months after exposure, but in rare cases, symptoms have not appeared for several years, according to the Department of Health.

Modern post-exposure treatments for rabies, using vaccines and antibodies, have been almost universally effective in preventing death in humans in the Western Hemisphere.

According to a March 2023 report from the Infectious Disease Society of America, an 84-year-old Minnesota man became the first person to die from rabies in the United States in 2021 despite receiving these treatments. The scientists concluded that the failure of these treatments was most likely due to an unknown deficiency in the human’s immunity.