Officials are seeking anyone who may have come in contact with the diseased cat
By Heather Stauffer, Sentinel Reporter, April 6, 2010
Dennis Bumbaugh is hoping the rabid cat with the pink collar didn’t infect its owner or anyone who might have had contact with it before it was picked up in North Newton Township Friday.
“I’ve never seen a cat with rabies; I really don’t care to see it again,” said Bumbaugh, executive director of Better Days Animal League in Shippensburg and Chambersburg.
When the cat was brought to the shelter that evening, Bumbaugh said, the staff didn’t suspect rabies. She was thin, he said, but it looked as if her left rear leg had been injured by a vehicle. When the cat didn’t initially act the way wild cats do, Bumbaugh and his staff decided she must be a strayed domesticated cat.
“I just assumed with it being a collar, it’s a known cat, not used to being in a cage,” Bumbaugh said. She “nibbled” at staff and tried to scratch a bit, he said, but there was nothing unusual until later, when she turned aggressive.
Then, he said, she started scratching and biting, catching him and two other people working at the shelter before she died Saturday evening. The rabies test came back positive, he said, so all three of them immediately started vaccinations.
“It was very, very fast,” Bumbaugh said of the progression of the disease in the cat.
She didn’t have contact with any other animals at the shelter, he said, and the woman who brought her in hadn’t physically touched her, but given that the rabies was apparently in an advanced state he is worried about her owner, anyone else who might have touched her or even the other animals she might have come into contact with while roaming the area.
Dr. Andre Weltman is a physician with the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Rabies is transmitted only by certain kinds of contact, Weltman said — bites, scratches or getting an infected animal’s saliva in the eyes or mouth. He said that anyone who suspects contact should contact the department as soon as possible so it can assess whether such contact occurred and the “very effective” vaccine is needed.
They may also call their physician, Weltman said, stressing that people should seek care “urgently” but not before the department assesses whether the necessary contact actually occurred.
However, he said, the department would also like to hear from anyone who may have seen the cat, as that may help them track down its owner or anyone else who may have been affected.
The department’s local number is 243-5151, and its statewide number is 877-PA-HEALTH.
Weltman said the cat, described as a grey and white domestic shorthair about 2 to 3 years old and wearing a pink collar, was picked up between Newburg and Newville. The location is near the county landfill off Running Pump Road, he said.
Red flag
Bumbaugh said that regulations require that if an animal brought to a shelter is suspected of rabies — generally because it acts feral or appears sickly — it be quarantined for 10 days.
“It raises our red flags for us now,” he said. “We just have to assume now that every cat that comes in has rabies.”
State law requires that anyone who owns or keeps a cat more than 3 months old that spends all or part of the day in a home inhabited by a person must have it vaccinated against rabies.