Wildlife rabies in the United States: recent history and current concepts.
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Biomedical subjects
R G McLean
Publications and source records attributed to R G McLean.
The raccoon an emerging rabies host.
The geographic distribution of enzootic rabies in raccoons is currently limited to Florida and Georgia. The enzootic area has steadily expanded northward into Georgia during the 1960's. An epizootic in a population of raccoons closely associated with the human residents of a small, off-shore island was investigated. Forty-seven raccoons from the island were confirmed rabies positive by the State Laboratory from January 22 to May 20, 1969. About 10 percent of the raccoons trapped during the peak of the epizootic were positive and all of these had high titers of virus in their salivary glands but were asymptomatic in behavior. Human exposure typically resulted from close approach to a "sick" raccoon. Similar outbreaks may occur elsewhere when humans live in close contact with a semi-domesticated raccoon population. Rabies vaccination of raccoons should be considered as an alternative to population reduction in such situations.
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Cloacal flora isolated from wild black-bellied whistling ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) in Laguna La Nacha, Mexico.
Cloacal swabs from 110 adult black-bellied whistling ducks trapped at Laguna La Nacha, Tamaulipas, Mexico, were cultured to determine the prevalence of normal and potentially pathogenic bacteria. Twenty-five gram-negative enterobacteria and four gram-positive cocci were isolated. The most common isolates included Escherichia coli (54%), Staphylococcus spp. (29%), Streptococcus spp. (22%), Aeromonas hydrophila (15%) Enterobacter cloacae (14%), and Micrococcus sp. (14%). The implications of whistling ducks as possible reservoirs of pathogenic bacteria are discussed.
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