Second raccoon in Suffolk County tests positive for rabies

For the second time this year, a raccoon has tested positive for rabies in Suffolk, county health officials said.

A dead raccoon discovered in Amityville on Tuesday tested positive for rabies at a state health department facility in Albany, Suffolk health officials announced Monday.

A dead raccoon found in nearby North Amityville on Jan. 28 also was deemed rabid, Newsday reported at the time.

Before that positive confirmation from the state, rabies had not been detected in land mammals in Suffolk for 16 years according to a county health department release.

Both hamlets border Nassau County, which reported rabies infections in six raccoons, one of which scratched and bit a resident of Massapequa Park who required post-exposure treatment, plus a pair of feral cats between July 2024 and January, Newsday has reported.

"We are very concerned that rabies is spreading along our western border, and we ask for the public’s help," Suffolk County Department of Health Services Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott said in a statement on Monday.

In the years leading up to the recent string of infections, both Long Island counties reported rabies only in bats. Suffolk also reported rabies in a river otter found in Sound Beach in 2017, Newsday reported at the time.

The viral disease is transmissible to humans, typically through the bite or scratch of an infected animal, according to health officials.

Pigott encouraged Suffolk residents to ensure their pets are vaccinated, leash their dogs, cats and ferrets, corral livestock at night, avoid feeding stray animals and wildlife, and refrain from touching dead or dying wildlife.

Health department officials recently outlined a preliminary oral rabies vaccines program that could begin this fall to curtail the spread of rabies by using bait to vaccinate wild animals.

The health commissioner, along with Stephen Kane, chief public health sanitarian and Brian Gibbins, senior public health sanitarian, presented the approximately $509,000 plan to the Suffolk County Legislature’s health committee Feb. 27 after the first reported case of rabies.

The bulk of the cost would go toward bait, estimated at $309,600, while additional expenses would go toward enhanced surveillance ($78,600) and post-bait monitoring ($93,000), according to the presentation.

The goal, Gibbins said, was to "eradicate" rabies for an extended period where "we won’t have to take all these extraordinary steps to keep the public safe."

He described the plan as "a very, very early potential budget."

A similar oral rabies vaccines program was successful to stop a previous outbreak in the 2000s and the county went 15 years without a positive rabies sample, he said.

Pigott said the department would tap into a reserve fund for the money. He said the department could seek state reimbursement for about 36% of the cost.

Kane said the baiting strategy is recommended twice a year at times "that match the reproductive cycle" of animals like raccoons and the baiting could be begin in fall.

Last month, Newsday reported the Suffolk health department announced a free rabies vaccine clinic for dogs, cats and ferrets on March 21 at the Eastern Suffolk BOCES H.B. Ward Technical Center in Riverhead.

Abnormally acting raccoons can be reported to Suffolk police at 631-852-COPS or the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation at 631-444-0250.

Animal bites, contact with wild animals and dead raccoon sightings can be reported to the Suffolk County Department of Health Services at 631-854-0333 on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. or at 631-852-4820 outside normal business hours.