Rabies Update December 2019

There have been 471 cases of raccoon strain, and 21 cases of fox strain rabies in Ontario to date.

At the end of the 2019 calendar year for MNRF’s rabies program there were were 22 raccoon strain and 0 fox strain rabies cases detected in southern Ontario, a ~70% decrease in rabies cases from 2018. In 2019, we tested 4,425 samples for rabies, a ~15% increase in sampling effort from the previous year. Rabies surveillance of this scale would not be possible without the support and assistance of animal control specialists like Hawkeye.

The maps will be submitted for posting on the Ontario.ca website after 1 business day unless one of the affected health units advises us to postpone release pending specific health unit website updates or media releases. 

MNRF’s rabies lab will resume testing in early January 2020.

2019 Number of DRIT tests: 4,425

2019 Number of baits distributed: 1,164,992

Number of confirmatory tests performed by CFIA (Ontario only, including bats): 39

Number of confirmatory test performed by CFIA (Ontario only, terrestrial animals only): 26

Number of rabies positive terrestrial animals subject to virus variant typing by CFIA (Ontario only): 23