As Americans increasingly get back to nature—voluntarily in outdoor recreation or involuntarily as expanding suburbs move in before wildlife can move out—rabies statistics take on even more epidemiologic significance.
One human death attributed to rabies has been reported in the United States so far this year. An 11-year-old girl, daughter of a sergeant at Fort Carson, Colo, became ill March 23 and died April 2 in Fitzsimons General Hospital, Denver.
Reports of rabies in animals in the US in 1966, meanwhile, had edged up to 1,837 by the end of last month. This is higher than the 1961-1965 median of 1,789 for the period, but below the 2,093 reports received in the first 21 weeks of 1965.
In all of 1965, there were 4,584 laboratory-confirmed cases of animal rabies in this country. Of these, 3,257 cases (71%) were in wild species.
Wildlife Rabies Increased
While reported rabies cases among US