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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2006

Quick rabies containment

WASHINGTON D.C.--PetSmart Charities suspended cat and dog adoptions at 22 stores in Virginia and Maryland in early June 2006, after two kittens adopted from the Greenbelt store in the Washington D.C. suburbs proved to be rabid. The kittens were in the store for five days, beginning on May 14, Greenbelt PetSmart manager John Marsiglia told Washington Post staff writer Hamil R. Harris.

The adoption shutdown limited human exposure to animals who may have had exposure to the kittens. Those animals were quarantined successfully.

The two rabid kittens and four litter mates of the first kitten were euthanized, Last Chance Animal Rescue director Cindy Sharpley told Harris. Six humans from two familes who adopted the kittens and several store employees received post-exposure vaccination.

The quick containment was markedly different from the results in October 1994, when a pet store in Concord, New Hampshire inadvertently sold a rabid kitten from a found feral litter. Jamie Childs, M.D., of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta estimated in July 1995 that the New Hampshire episode cost $1.5 million, including $1.1 million to administer a six-shot series of post-exposure vaccinations to 665 people, $4,200 for testing exposed animals, and $15,000 spent to find people who might have handled the kitten.

Childs said the New Hampshire case was complicated because the Concord store did not keep detailed records on animal sales and health, kittens were allowed to roam freely throughout the store, and the store was often visited by children from nearby childcare centers and a school.

At the Greenbelt store, "The first kitten identified was 9-10 weeks old. The entire litter, without the mother, were picked up and brought to Last Chance Animal Rescue," PetSmart Charities adoption operations manager Julie Schmaltz told ANIMAL PEOPLE. "They were isolated from all other cats until brought into the store for adoption."

The adopter returned the kitten to the store because he "was lurching and unsteady," Sharpley told Harris. "When I reached into his cage to check him, he attacked my hand."

The second kitten, acquired by Last Chance from the Queen Anne County Animal Control Center, according to Schmaltz, "was 12 to 14 weeks old," Schmaltz said. She was in her adoptive home a little over a month and had been seen by two veterinarians. The first vet provided a rabies booster vaccination. The kitten went to a second vet due to having problems with back legs and acting odd. The vet gave her antibiotics, earmite medication, and worming medication, and then sent her home. The day prior to the second vet visit, the kitten bit the husband. The next day the kitten bit the son and two other members of the family."

PetSmart district manager Paul Amirault told Harris that the company had handled only one other rabid animal, a dog in 2004, among more than three million animals adopted out since 1989.