A Wilmerding family's exposure to rabies after taking in a pair of stray kittens prompted the Allegheny County Health Department to warn residents not to touch or take in feral animals and wildlife.
“It is well-intentioned efforts by individuals trying to help, and sometimes they unnecessarily get exposed to rabies,” chief public health nurse Sharon Silvestri said.
The family is doing fine, she said, because rabies is not a fast acting virus. The incubation period can take 30 days up to several years before it reaches the nervous system and travel to the brain, she said.
But that delay does not make it any less dangerous, Silvestri said.
“Rabies is one of the only vaccine-preventable diseases that if it goes untreated you almost always die,” she said.
The health department follows up on every single animal bite reported in Allegheny County.
“We contact the owner of the animal that bit them and quarantine that dog ... for 10 days, because if the animal who has bitten the person has rabies, it will be dead in five to seven days,” she said.
So far this year, Allegheny County residents have reported 11 rabid animals including five bats, two raccoons, two stray cats and two groundhogs.
