Ten months after the state approved using an uninhabited Virginia island to test a genetically engineered oral vaccine against rabies in raccoons, the test is still on hold.
Suzanne R. Jenkins, a veterinarian and expert on rabies with the state Health Department, said recently she expected the testing at Parramore Island off the Eastern Shore to begin this month or next.
However, the Nature Conservancy, which owns the island, is still working out arrangements.
"We're still evaluating it," said Barry Truitt, manager of the Virginia Coast Reserve, part of the Conservancy.
"It's not going to happen real quick," Truitt said, but wouldn't specify a time frame. Conservancy officials still are looking at liability and insurance issues and monitoring procedures, he said.
The Coast Reserve is based in Nassawadox in Northampton Please see Rabies, County on the Shore. Parramore Island is in the Atlantic Ocean about four miles off Wachapreague in neighboring Accomack County.
The state Health Department approved the tests in July. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also approved, and the department's environmental assessment concluded there would be no significant impact on humans or animals.
No opposition was heard at a public meeting in Accomack County a year ago. Of several strains of rabies virus, raccoon rabies is the most prevalent type in Virginia, said Jenkins, the assistant state epidemiologist. There has been an outbreak of rabid skunks in the southwestern part of the state, and bats carrying the disease can be found anywhere, she said.
Since inoculating animals in the wild isn't practical, finding another way to immunize them is important to stop the spread of rabies, she said.
Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology in Philadelphia, a non-profit biomedical research organization that developed the vaccine, has studied the raccoon population on Parramore Island for two years, Jenkins said.
If testing is agreed on, bait would be laced with fish oil and the synthetic vaccine. The vaccine triggers an immune response in the animal, but the animal could not get rabies from the vaccine, Wistar officials have said.
The rabies outbreak in Virginia started in the late 1970s in the northwestern part of the state, peaking in 1983 but still advancing at a rate of about seven or eight counties a year.
The number of cases has dropped from 745 in 1982 to 262 last year, Jenkins said. But at the same time, she warned that rabies can be found throughout most of the state.
Jenkins said there could be several reasons for the reduced number of cases. For starters, a lot of raccoons die from the disease before they can infect pets and humans. Those who are infected with rabies but don't die become immune to it.
Also, the disease has moved to urban areas where residents are more apt to vaccinate pets that might come in contact with rabid animals, she said.
There have been 38 confirmed cases of rabies in animals on the Peninsula since the first case was reported in June 1988, mainly involving raccoons, according to reports from state and local health department offices. Bill Perry, sanitarian manager for the Middle Peninsula Health District, said six rabid raccoons were found in Gloucester last year. One has already been reported this year.
Rabies has been discovered as far south as Chesapeake, but Jenkins said she believes the two cases reported there are isolated because they were far from the "local front" of the disease. Local officials have previously said that the southernmost case was in the Denbigh area of Newport News.
"Our interest is in controlling it in any animal with proximity to humans, and raccoons are prevalent in developing areas," said Betty Rouse, epidemiologist for the eastern regional office of the Health Department. The office is responsible for an area that includes the Eastern Shore and localities from the Northern Neck to south of the James River.
"Immunization of domestic animals is protective, but the ability to control it in wild ani mals would be a new safeguard," she said.
The rabies threat to humans is primarily through unvaccinated dogs and cats that come into contact with a rabid animal. The disease spreads through saliva from a bite; it is always fatal to humans if untreated, Jenkins said.
"We're really having to rely on an educated public," she said in stressing the importance of having pets vaccinated against rabies.
"Most of the bites people get are from pets," she said. "They don't come from raccoons and skunks out in the wild."
Since the rabies outbreak reached the Peninsula almost two years ago, eight people have been inoculated against the disease.
Jenkins said people who suspect they have been bitten by a rabid animal should wash the wound and call a physician and local health or animal control officials. And, if possible, they should try to contain the animal for observation.
Jenkins has several suggestions for dealing with the raccoon rabies problem:
Avoid trapping and moving raccoons. Moving a healthy raccoon into a diseased area just adds fuel to the fire, and moving a sick one can spread the disease, she says. Handling raccoons is risky for people who haven't been inoculated.
Raccoons thrive in cities as well as the country. "Don't give them a reason to hang around your house," she advises. Use a garbage can with a tight lid; don't leave pet food outside; cap chimneys and close basement windows to keep the animals out.
Caution children to avoid strays and wild animals. By state law, dogs and cats are supposed to be vaccinated against rabies before they are four months old, but not all of them are. There are about 10 rabid cats for every rabid dog reported, she says, and 90 percent of those cats are strays.
Staff writer Ron Shawgo contributed to this article.