PORT HADLOCK – The first case of rabies discovered in the North Olympic Peninsula in many years resulted in five local people being treated with rabies vaccine, said representatives of Jefferson County Public Health Department.
All of the exposed individuals, who have each undergone multiple shots, have shown no signs of having rabies and are doing well, said Mike McNickle, Jefferson County Public Health spokesman and director of the county Environmental Health Department.
The people – who McNickle declined to identify – were exposed to the saliva of a rabid dog, which was one of a pair of dogs shipped to Port Hadlock from India in mid-March.
McNickle would not say if anyone had been bitten.
The dog that exposed the five local people was later shipped to Alaska, where it was adopted, before dying of the virus.
Three people in Alaska have been treated after exposure to the dog.
They also are doing well, said McNickle.
The second dog was euthanized because of its possible exposure to rabies, but no rabies was found in tissue samples taken after its death.
Both dogs were mixed breeds.
McNickle did not know why the dogs were shipped from India.
McNickle said the dogs were never allowed in public areas where they could have exposed other animals or people to the disease.
If a human is infested, it almost always means certain death, McNickle said.
He said there are only six cases where humans have ever survived once they contracted the disease.
