Pets can get free rabies shots this Thursday, at a clinic held by the Onondaga County Health Department in Syracuse’s Eastwood neighborhood.
The agency holds up to eight such clinics every year, says OCHD Environmental Health Director Lisa Letteney, but this is an extra event in the calendar, and it comes after the department treated six people who came into contact with a rabid fox in Eastwood last month.
"We wanted to have one in the area where the fox was located," Letteney said, "just so that it gives people another reminder that rabies is in an our environment. It's important to get the cats and dogs and ferrets up to date on their rabies shot."
The clinic is an easy opportunity to do that, she says, and a free one, whereas vets usually charge for rabies shots.
Letteney points out that foxes aren't the only local wildlife that carry the disease; so do raccoons and skunks. However, she says the wild animals that the OCHD most often sees test positive are bats, who find their way into the homes of people who typically scare the creatures away. That's a normal response, says Letteney, but it's not helpful to containing the disease.
"Especially if you did not see [the bat] come in, or if you're not sure if anybody's been around the bat, or you wake up in a bedroom with a bat," said Letteney.
Rather than shoo it away, she said, "capture that bat so that we can test it. Because if you let it out of your house, you're going to end up having to get rabies shots."
Letteney says it typically takes less than a day to get results from rabies testing.
As for humans, she and other health officials still want anyone who came into direct contact with the fox in the Burnet Ave. area in the first two weeks of October to come forward immediately. That's before any symptoms manifest, and before rabies attacks the brain. At that point, health officials say, it's too late for treatment — which consists of four shots over a week — because the disease is fatal.
This Thursday’s free rabies clinic will be held 4:30 to 6:30 pm at the Eastwood Community Center. Appointments for the clinic should be scheduled on the OCHD website.
