Cute But the bad news is that the fox, many times carry rabies.
over 50,000 people die each year from rabies worldwide.
True, though those scary sounding statistics are worldwide statistics. Almost all of those deaths occur in Asia (about 31k) and Africa (about 24k), where... Frankly, in the bamboo forests of Burma they're just trying to grow rice and survive the next plague of rats, and probably don't have much time to get educated about rabies (or access to healthcare even if they do know about it).
According to the CDC, while the rabies virus is still very common among unvaccinated wildlife in the US (particularly in bat populations), human deaths from rabies are quite rare, primarily due to public awareness of the disease. In 2010, there were two confirmed cases of human rabies in the entire US. That's not deaths from rabies, that's total reported cases (reporting is mandatory if you are treated by a healthcare professional).
In this century, the number of human deaths in the United States attributed to rabies has declined from 100 or more each year to an average of 2 or 3 each year. Two programs have been responsible for this decline. First, animal control and vaccination programs begun in the 1940's and oral rabies vaccination programs in the 2000's have eliminated domestic dogs as reservoirs of rabies in the United States. Second, effective human rabies vaccines and immunoglobulins have been developed.
Statistics are similar in most other developed countries where we have running water, hospitals, and... You know, the Internet and computers that might run JRiver MC.
In the end... Is it rabies that is going to kill you? I don't know. If you get bitten, get checked. But it is probably
much, much more likely to be that quadruple-bacon-cheeseburger you had for lunch, or maybe the toxic smoke emitted by the power plant five states away.
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Topic: I love my new place (wildlife) (Read 4788 times)