The Texas Department of State Health Services has re-launched its annual airdrop of rabies vaccine for wildlife along the Texas-Mexico border to protect people and animals from the deadly disease.
The Texas Department of State Health Services has re-launched its annual airdrop of rabies vaccine for wildlife along the Texas-Mexico border to protect people and animals from the deadly disease.
Planes took off today from the airport in Zapata to begin the process of dropping about 1 million rabies vaccine baits in wildlife habitat along a 25-mile-wide swath of the border from the Rio Grande Valley to Big Bend.
The Texas Oral Rabies Vaccination Program began in 1995 in response to major outbreaks of the canine strain of rabies in southern Texas and the gray fox type of rabies in western Texas. The outbreaks involved hundreds of animal cases, caused two human deaths and prompted thousands of costly post-exposure treatments to prevent rabies in people.
