On 12 Sep 1995, Ian A. York wrote:
> In article <XYZ-120995084807 at srquadra.geo.brown.edu>, <XYZ at brown.edu> wrote:
> > Question #2: Are these quarantines really necessary? Are there no
>> They have been highly successful, at any rate: so far as I know there
> have been no cases of confirmed rabies in the British Isles.
>There have been rare cases of rabies. I've only got available data to
about 82-83 something like that. From the early 70s to that time there
were about 10-15 cases of human rabies, all from bites received abroad.
There have been some cases in quarantine, mainly dogs, a coupla cats and
one leopard cub (that kinda trivia stuck for some reason). There has been
one case where an animal developed after quaranrtine has elapsed but it
was dealt with. A little bit of a scare though.
I can dig out these numbers for anyone who is interested, and the sources.
Again I haven't found anything after mid eighties yet, but I may be able
to get hold of it.
Nonetheless as you say its been efficient. There was an eradication of
the disease just before WWI, this had to be repeated after that war.
Since 1922 its not been endemic anywhere (I think it was 1922, I'll have
to check). Basically we don't have rabies in the UK, except as rare isolated
cases coming in from abroad.
There were public worries about the possibility of the Channel Tunnel
being an entry route, I don't know what precautions if any have been
taken on that. It would seem that rats etc don't seem to have brought the
problem in.
Tim