{"id":32248,"date":"2025-07-23T22:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T22:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/32248\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T22:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T22:25:09","slug":"numbers-show-increase-in-nassau-rabies-cases-defies-recent-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/32248\/","title":{"rendered":"Numbers show increase in Nassau rabies cases defies recent trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nassau County is experiencing the widest spread of the potentially deadly rabies virus since the state began collecting data from municipalities almost 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Since July 2024, Nassau has confirmed 25 rabies cases \u2014 22 raccoons and three feral cats \u2014 across virtually every part of the county, figures show.<\/p>\n

Comparatively, Nassau\u00a0had seven\u00a0confirmed cases in total between 2007 and mid-2024\u00a0\u2014 five bats, a cat and a raccoon, state data shows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Before the recent wave of cases, the most recent animal that tested positive in Nassau for rabies was a bat in May of 2021.<\/p>\n

During the past year, 14 animals tested positive in the Town of Hempstead, including four in West Hempstead and three in Valley Stream, according to Nassau\u2019s Department of Health.<\/p>\n

Nine\u00a0cases were confirmed in the Town of Oyster Bay \u2014 including two each in Massapequa and Massapequa Park \u2014 and two cases were in the Town of North Hempstead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nassau Health Commissioner Dr. Irina Gelman said the county is currently awaiting test results for four more specimens.<\/p>\n

“This is a concerning trend, especially given the fact that rabies were effectively eradicated in the county after 2016,” Gelman said at a news conference<\/a> in Mineola on Tuesday in which she declared rabies an “imminent public health threat<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Experts speculate there are several potential reasons for the rabies resurgence in Nassau, including environmental and weather conditions; that baits with vaccination were not distributed in areas where raccoons could consume them on an annual basis until recently and New York City temporarily ending <\/a>its baiting program last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Obviously there are multiple factors that go into play, but when you stop actively baiting and preventing along the Nassau-Queens border, that may one of the contributing variables for seeing some resurgence,” Gelman said of New York City.<\/p>\n

The City Health Department said it distributed\u00a0the oral rabies vaccine in targeted areas of Queens and Brooklyn in April and there are plans to resume a citywide baiting program in the fall.<\/p>\n

The bait, which smells like food, contains the rabies vaccine and will inoculate raccoons that consume it in an effort to stop the spread of the disease.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been 20 confirmed rabies cases <\/a>in the past 12 months in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island combined, city officials said.<\/p>\n

“Because of our strong raccoon rabies surveillance program in NYC, we know that rabies has been circulating in NYC since it first appeared in 1992,” the City Health Department said in a statement. “Raccoons don\u2019t respect boundaries, so we\u2019re not able determine how and where rabid raccoons are moving, or being moved by people … We encourage Nassau County to also implement a robust surveillance program.”<\/p>\n

John Di Leonardo, executive director of Humane Long Island, said the uptick in cases in Nassau should be kept in perspective.<\/p>\n

“We have 30,000 raccoons in Nassau County,” said\u00a0Di Leonardo, an\u00a0anthrozoologist. “So if you look at it from that perspective, 25 cases is not is not that huge.”<\/p>\n

Rabies, a viral disease, is spread to humans and pets via bites and scratches from an infected animal. It can be deadly in people if not treated immediately.<\/p>\n

“Once rabies is present in wildlife it has the high probability of spreading,” the State Health Department told Newsday in a statement.<\/p>\n

In Suffolk County, six rabid raccoons have been discovered this year, all in the Amityville area.<\/p>\n

Between 2008 and 2024, the county reported a total of 52 rabies cases, the majority in bats, state data shows.<\/p>\n

Suffolk announced Wednesday that it would offer\u00a0free rabies vaccinations for dogs, cats and ferrets on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Brookhaven Animal Shelter.<\/p>\n

Since July 1, 2024, 345 animals outside of New York City\u00a0have\u00a0tested\u00a0positive for rabies, the bulk of which were in racoons, state figures show.<\/p>\n

There have been no human cases of rabies resulting from exposure in New York since 1993.<\/p>\n

With Lisa Colangelo<\/p>\n

\"Robert<\/p>\n

\n\tRobert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassau County is experiencing the widest spread of the potentially deadly rabies virus since the state began collecting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32249,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,97,3,27113,452,453],"class_list":["post-32248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-qs","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}