Livestock Involvement: Animal is NOT Showing Signs of Rabies

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Livestock Involvement: Animal is NOT Showing Signs of Rabies

• Quarantine animal on owner's premises for 30 days. A veterinarian should examine the animal at the beginning of the quarantine period, 6-10 days later, and then finally at the end of 30 days (1)
• As long as the animal remains healthy, post-exposure prophylaxis does not need be administered to the bite victim (2)

(1) Authority does not exist in statute to quarantine species other than dogs and cats. However, statutory authority does permit an officer to order an animal (other than a dog or cat) to be killed and tested for rabies. Thus, this quarantine for livestock is a way to avoid the routine killing and testing of every such animal that bites a human, while still providing reasonable assurance that the animal was not shedding the rabies virus at the time of the bite.

(2) Although the duration of asymptomatic rabies virus shedding has not been determined experimentally for livestock species, it is unlikely that this duration exceeds a few days.

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