VANCOUVER \u2014 A skunk that bit a number of people in downtown Vancouver has tested positive for rabies.<\/p>\n
Vancouver Coastal Health issued a news release notifying the public of the confirmed case on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n
The health authority said interactions with skunks are rare, but \u201ca small number of people bitten by the skunk have been assessed and received rabies vaccinations and immunoglobulin to prevent rabies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rabies virus is a fatal viral infection that affects the brain and nervous system. It is found in the saliva of infected animals and can be transmitted through a bite or a scratch from an infected animal, Vancouver Coastal Health said.<\/p>\n
\u201cRabies virus is not transmitted through exposure to the spray, urine or feces of infected skunks,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Though bats are the only known \u201creservoirs\u201d for rabies in British Columbia, the authority said \u201coccasional spillovers to other animal species in specific geographical areas, including skunks, have occurred in B.C.\u201d<\/p>\n
The seriousness of the infection was highlighted in an issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal earlier this year, where infectious disease physicians described the case of an 11-year-old Ontario child who died of rabies in 2024.<\/p>\n
Dr. Brian Hummel, the case report\u2019s senior author and a pediatric infectious disease physician at McMaster Children\u2019s Hospital in Hamilton, told The Canadian Press in June that it\u2019s \u201can extraordinarily rare infection\u201d for humans in Canada, with only 28 cases reported since 1924.<\/p>\n
The most recent rabies case before the 11-year-old boy was a man who died after exposure to a bat in B.C. in 2019.<\/p>\n
Hummel said once symptoms of rabies start, there is no treatment or cure, but noted the virus has a relatively long incubation period \u2014 usually weeks \u2014 before symptoms of illness start to show.<\/p>\n
Anyone who may have been bitten or scratched by a sick or abnormally behaving skunk in Vancouver\u2019s West End neighbourhood between Sept. 22 and Oct. 17 is being asked to contact Vancouver Coastal Health for assessment.<\/p>\n
The release said anyone who lives outside the region should contact their local health authority for assessment.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 A skunk that bit a number of people in downtown Vancouver has tested positive for rabies.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-942213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}