Tony Alter / CC
Grey Bruce Public Health is providing tips on what to do when bitten by an animal to avoid contracting rabies.
Senior Public Health Manager Andrew Barton says while they do not always receive word of dog bites in the region, they dealt with just over 500 biting incidents last year.
“We may even be a little bit higher this year, but we obviously won’t know until we get to the end of the year,” says Barton.
He says rabies continues to be a rare disease which has only been found in bats in the region over the last decade.
“Rabies is still a globally significant disease. There are anywhere from perhaps 60,000 to 70,000 people a year who die from rabies. It is almost exclusively in other parts of the world. Rabies in Canada is extremely rare,” says Barton. “It really is quite low risk.”
Public Health is alerted to an animal bite when the victim visits a healthcare provider to receive medical attention.
“The healthcare provider has a duty to let us know and then we will do an investigation. Typically what we can do is have the dog owner confine the animal at home for 10 days. There has been a huge amount of study on rabies over the years. We know that if that dog is alive and well at the end of that 10-day period, there was no risk of rabies being transmitted at the time of the bite,” says Barton.
He adds if the bite is insignificant, the victim can still reach out to public health.
“It is still a good idea to get healthcare, however, because obviously having said that rabies is extremely rare in Grey and Bruce, there are other disease that can be caught through an infected bite or scratch and it is possible for instance that somebody isn’t up to date on their tetanus or there may be some other infection,” says Barton.
When a person is bit by a dog, Barton says it does make their job easier if the victim does take the dog owner’s information, but acknowledges that is not always possible.
“Typically the follow up is a simple process of the dog owner just keeping an eye on the health of the animal for 10 days. That is the same process for cats and some other animals as well,” says Barton.
Barton recommends pet owners keep their pet vaccinations up to date.
“The vast majority of bites that we deal with are not attacks, they are just dogs being dogs. There are certain things we can do, such as just leaving a bit of space, not putting your hand into a car if the dog is in the car, those sorts of things that reduce the risk of being bitten,” says Barton.