RALEIGH, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) has partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help prevent the spread of rabies in western North Carolina.
Starting mid-October, Wildlife Services will be distributing oral rabies vaccines to wild raccoons across the region. On October 16, bait — consisting of a sachet or plastic packet — with oral rabies vaccines will be aerially distributed in Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga, and Yancey counties.
The baits will be sprinkled with a fishmeal coating or encased inside hard fishmeal polymer blocks about the size of a matchbox. When a raccoon bites into the bait, the vaccine packet is punctured, allowing the vaccine to enter the animal’s mouth. The vaccine protects the animal from becoming infected with rabies…