6 to Be Treated as Precaution in Rabies Scare

At least six people will be given rabies shots after tests showed that a stray kitten in Oxnard may have had the potentially fatal disease, public health officials said Thursday.

The test results were inconclusive because only one of 18 tissue samples taken from the kitten’s brain tested positive for rabies, but officials are taking no chances.

“We could not call it negative, so we opted to recommend that people get vaccines who had handled the kitten,” said Marilyn Billimek, a Ventura County public health nurse. “Once you get the virus, without a vaccination you do not survive, so it’s a deadly virus.”

Still, officials caution that people should not panic.

Fewer than 20 people a year nationwide die of rabies, Billimek said. The last Ventura County death occurred in 1981, when a Santa Paula man who had come into contact with a sick, stray dog in Mexico seven months earlier died at the Ventura County Medical Center, she said. He did not receive treatment until it was too late.

It is even rarer for domestic animals to contract the disease in Ventura County, said Kathy Jenks, director of county animal control.

“This is the first time in modern history a domestic animal has tested presumably positive in this county,” she said. “If nothing else, this has been an excellent wake-up call because we’ve got a little complacent through the years because you just don’t see it. We know the bats are rabid, we assume the skunks are rabid, we forgot about cats.”

Each year, dozens of bats in the county are found to have rabies, including one found on a Ventura beach in March. In 1995, eight county residents were given precautionary rabies shots after handling a rabid bat. Research has shown that the disease can be transmitted without biting, officials said.

The potentially rabid kitten was one of a litter of four that were in the vicinity of El Greco and Callas drives in Oxnard and were being fed by two elderly couples who lived nearby.

One of the kittens appeared sickly and bit one of the people who tried to handle it, Billimek said. All four kittens, as well as the sickly mother of the litter, were picked up by animal control officers last week and destroyed. Two more are also undergoing tests for any sign of rabies.

Those at risk of rabies exposure will require as many as seven shots--fewer than the daunting 28 that used to be required--and will be monitored for any sign of the disease over the next year, Billimek said.

Animal control officers will begin canvassing the neighborhood today for other people who may have come into contact with the cats, Jenks said.

Officials caution that people should not handle any stray animals, especially if they appear sick or injured. Stray animals should be reported to animal control at 388-4341.

Pet owners are urged to have cats and dogs over the age of 4 months vaccinated against rabies, especially outdoor bat-hunting felines.

In case of contact with an animal suspected of having rabies, health officials recommend thoroughly washing any wound with soap and water and contacting health-care providers for follow-up vaccinations.

But Jenks cautioned that people should not overreact, especially because the presence of rabies in the kitten remains a question mark.

“The last thing I want is anybody panicking and having open season on cats,” she said. “It’s not a cat thing, it’s a wildlife thing.”