By Jasmine Laws

Copyright newsweek

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will be airdropping rabies vaccines into six states over the course of the month, continuing a process that started in August this year in other states.

Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia will receive the vaccines.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) distributes rabies vaccines as part of a nationwide effort to stop the spread of rabies among various animals to protect public and animal health.

Newsweek has contacted USDA’s APHIS outside of regular working hours via email for comment.

Why It Matters

Rabies is a viral disease that can be deadly to humans, affecting the nervous system and leading to severe brain disease, if they don’t receive medical care before symptoms start.

It is spread to people and pets through the bites and scratches of an infected animal, and first symptoms may include flu, weakness, discomfort, fever, headache, as well as a prickling sensation at the site of the wound, before turning into more severe disease after around two weeks.

Animals that typically carry rabies are bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes. Nearly three in four Americans live in a community where animals carry rabies, and contact with infected bats is the leading cause of rabies deaths in the U.S.

The USDA prepares to distribute packets of baited rabies vaccine by helicopter from a container in 2013, at Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport’s Lovell Field in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

What To Know

In October, USDA APHIS will be distributing hundreds of thousands of oral rabies vaccines, known as RABORAL V-RG, as baits coated in a fishmeal attractant and packaged in two-inch plastic sachets, with the aim of preventing the spread of raccoon rabies to Americans and their pets.

The vaccines will be distributed across rural areas by airplane and in suburban and urban areas by helicopter and vehicle, across Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The baits are safe for many animals including domestic dogs and cats, but while humans and pets cannot get rabies from contact with the baits, it is advised that they should leave them undisturbed.

If dogs consume a number of baits, they may experience a temporary upset stomach, but the USDA said that there are no long-term risks to the animals.

For people, it is advised that if they come into contact with the baits, they immediately wash the contact area with warm water and soap.

If Americans find a bait in an area where a raccoon is unlikely to go, such as on their lawn or driveway, they may move them to an area with thicker cover, so long as they wear gloves or use a towel to pick up and move the bait.

Earlier this year, in August, USDA APHIS also spread the vaccines across Maine, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. From mid September through to mid October, it is also dropping vaccines in Massachusetts.

So far this year, 19 animals have tested positive for rabies in West Virginia, six of which were raccoons, according to West Virginia Department of Health data.

In Virginia, 352 animals tested positive for rabies in 2024, with raccoons making up the largest part of the figure—with 148 testing positive for rabies, state Department of Health data shows.

Raccoons also made up the majority of rabies cases in Alabama (25), Georgia (65), and North Carolina (100) reported in 2022, according to rabieswatch.com, but in Tennessee, it was skunks that made up the highest proportion of animal rabies cases.