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KINGSTOWN, N.C. -- A 5-year-old North Carolina boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children before his stepfather could kill the animal. "I wanted to protect my little brother," Rayshun McDowell said. It happened Sunday in the front yard of the McDowell's home in Kingston, about 50 miles west of Charlotte. Rayshun got bit in the leg but the 61-pound boy still held the fox down for more than a minute until his stepfather could get there and kill the animal. Test results confirm the fox...

SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Roving “dog-beating squads” have been ordered to kill all canines within a three-kilometer (two-mile) area in a southwestern Chinese city after two residents died of rabies, officials said. The order in Chongqing's Changshou district is the second in two months in the city. The measure drew a sharp response from a coalition of environmental and animal rights groups, who sent an open letter to media calling for a boycott of Chongqing tourism and local products. It was not immediately clear whether the order covered household pets, or just strays. “If we continue to rely on such...

Health officials in New York are warning residents to stay away from stray animals over the holiday period. The advice follows a large increase in the reported number of rabies cases, including seven in December alone. The outbreak is centred on the borough of Staten Island, which lies off Manhattan, where 35 animals have tested positive for the virus during 2006.

WILMINGTON - He was irresistible -- a cuddly, black puppy, affectionate and playful despite his broken paw and his apparent abandonment on a roadside. Unfortunately for his rescuers, he was also rabid. Now about 40 people will have to be tested to see whether they were exposed to the lethal virus while the puppy, dubbed Johnny, was being treated at College Road Animal Hospital.

Howls over new 1 dog policy 01/12/2006 16:51  - (SA)   Beijing - Amid fears of police storming into homes and calls for neighbours to inform on each other, a controversial new "one dog" policy in China's capital is eliciting howls of anger from pooch lovers. Beijing authorities, concerned by the growing number of dogs in the city and a rising incidence of rabies, have decreed that households can raise only one canine. Dogs taller than 35cm have been banned, and all dogs must now be registered and vaccinated or face being taken from their owners. While the new rules themselves have...

Beijing gets 'one dog policy'08/11/2006 19:24??-?(SA)?? ?Beijing - Beijing has launched a "one dog policy" in an effort to curb a sharp rise in rabies linked to the ballooning population of unregistered canines. "Each family is permitted to raise one dog," the government said in a statement seen on Wednesday on its website announcing the new policy. "Large dogs, ferocious dogs and the unregulated raising of dogs are not allowed." "Violators of the regulations will be fined up to 5?000 yuan ($640) and their pets will be taken into custody," it said, citing regulations issued this week. Rabies has...

(Griswold-AP, Oct. 31, 2006 5:35 AM) _ Sightings of foxes have forced Griswold schools to keep children indoors. School officials Monday banned all outside activity, including recess, gym classes, walks and after-school programs outdoors. The ban will stay in force until officials and experts can offer assurances on outdoor safety. Community groups that use the campus also were alerted and athletic games are being scheduled at other schools. Griswold schools are one campus adjacent to a wooded area. A spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection says the agency will send trappers to the area to catch the foxes...

SHANGHAI, Aug. 9 — It was late last month, the boy said, his voice still tinged with emotion, when he and his father were forced to march their two German shepherds to a public square and hang them from a tree. The boy, Xia Shaoli, was not alone in his pain. Officials in Mouding County in southwestern Yunnan Province had ordered the mass extermination of dogs, pets as well as strays, after three people died in a rabies outbreak. And as a crowd gathered around a large tree in the village of Xiajiashan, owners complied one after another with commands...

Five of the popular animals euthanized after girl, 9, is bitten Public condolences poured into the Minnesota Zoo on Friday, as zoo visitors and staff mourned the deaths of an entire meerkat family. Kids raced to the outdoor exhibit in Apple Valley and plastered their hands against the glass, only to find nothing inside. A small boy in a stroller wailed as his mother told him the creatures were away on vacation. "This is a hard day. This was frustrating, sad and totally avoidable," said Tony Fisher, zoo collections manager. "People need to respect the barriers we put up to...

Zoo meerkats test negative for rabies Five of the popular animals euthanized after girl, 9, is bittenBY MEGGEN LINDSAY Pioneer Press Public condolences poured into the Minnesota Zoo on Friday, as zoo visitors and staff mourned the deaths of an entire meerkat family. Kids raced to the outdoor exhibit in Apple Valley and plastered their hands against the glass, only to find nothing inside. A small boy in a stroller wailed as his mother told him the creatures were away on vacation. "This is a hard day. This was frustrating, sad and totally avoidable," said Tony Fisher, zoo collections manager....

Rabies shots urged for 950 Girl Scouts Associated Press LEESBURG, Va. - Officials are recommending that nearly 1,000 Girl Scouts who may have been exposed to rabies at a Northern Virginia camp consider getting protective vaccinations. There is only a small chance that any of the girls were infected by bats that were found in some of the sleeping shelters at Camp Potomac Woods, Loudoun County officials said. But authorities are erring on the side of caution because around 1 percent of bats carry rabies, a viral disease that is incurable once symptoms appear. Bats can bite children in their...

Sixteen die of rabies after dog attacks in E. China city www.chinaview.cn 2006-08-04 00:51:18 JINAN, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- Sixteen people have died of rabies over the past eight months after a rash of dog attacks in Jining City, east China's Shandong Province, the local government said Thursday. The disease was reported at 16 villages across the municipality, where more than 500,000 dogs live as pets or guard dogs. The local epidemic prevention authority has announced it will kill dogs within five kilometers of each affected village. Dogs in other parts will receive vaccinations against the disease. Epidemic prevention officials...

After three deaths from rabies, the local government ordered the blanket extermination of dogs. Pets were subsequently killed in the streets in front of their owners. Only police and army dogs were spared. Beijing (AsiaNews/agencies) – No less than 50,000 dogs were put down by government order after the death of three people from rabies. In Mouding county in the south-west province of Yunnan, the massacre lasted five days and only military guard dogs and police canine units were spared. Dogs being walked were taken from their owners and killed there and then. Other teams charged with slaughtering the dogs...

John Bolton, a notorious neocon warmonger who could not be confirmed as America's ambassador to the United Nations by even the compliant and corrupt U.S. Senate, got the job as a recess appointment. He is using the platform to push America into war with Iran. Bolton told the Financial Times on June 9 that the Bush regime has no intention of reaching an agreement with Iran. Time is running out for diplomacy, Bolton said. Iran has a short time remaining in which it can give up its right under the nonproliferation treaty to enrich uranium for nuclear energy or be...

WASHINGTON, Conn. -- A rabid fox attacked and bit two people and scared several others in town Saturday. Cyndy Brissett, the town animal control officer, said the fox had been living peacefully with its mate on a local property for about two years, frequently venturing through yards and eating food scraps, until Saturday. That's when the crazed fox started attacking residents. First was Janet Hill of 67 Shearer Road. She was gardening about 11 a.m. when she felt a sudden pain in her leg. Shocked, she spun around to see what it was, and saw a fox hanging from her,...

Tuesday, May 16, I was wakened from a deep sleep at 5:30 am by something biting me, I leapt out of bed and turned on the closet light to see a large rat run under the covers. I was later informed by a lady two streets over that we are under a sudden rat invasion. I had never seen a trace of a rat in my home. I took my bloody thumb to the sink and washed the wound throughly and put alchol on it, then repeated about ten mins later. I called my physician who told me to go...

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas teenager who was bitten by a bat while he slept in his home has died of rabies, the Houston hospital that treated him said in a statement. Zachary Jones, 16, died on Friday, a week after he became ill from the bat bite he received about a month before. According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control statistics, only 10 other people have died of rabies in the United States since 1998. "Rabies, which causes devastating neurological damage, is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, as was the case with this child," Texas Children's Hospital said...

An Humble High School sophomore died this afternoon, eight days after being hospitalized for a rabies infection believed to have been caused by a bat. Zach Jones died about 4:55 p.m., according to Texas Children's Hospital, where he had been in an induced coma for several days.

A Texas teenager bitten by a bat while he slept in his Houston area home was in critical condition with rabies in a local hospital on Wednesday, health officials said. The high school sophomore awoke from a nap four weeks ago to find a bat had apparently flown in an open window in his home, said Harris County Health Department doctor Herminia Palacio. "What we have is a history of the child waking up from a nap in his room and seeing a bat in the room and having felt the bat brush against him," she said. The boy did...

(snip) From Mexico's perspective, the border encompasses some of the country's most economically prosperous states. In contrast, the U.S. border region is among the poorest areas in the United States, with >30% of families living at or below the poverty level[8]. Along the Texas border, an estimated 350,000 or more people live in 1,450 unincorporated areas known as colonias, which lack adequate sanitation infrastructure[8]. The large population movement, limited public health infrastructure, and poor environmental conditions contribute to increased incidence of certain infectious diseases[8-11] Analysis of data from the U.S. National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System for 1990 through 1998 showed...