ONTARIO GOVERNMENT MAKES COMMUNITIES SAFER

For Immediate Release
April 04, 2006

ONTARIO GOVERNMENT MAKES COMMUNITIES SAFER
Successful Rabies Program Continues To Protect People Of Ontario

TORONTO — The Ontario government is working to ensure greater public health and safety by starting its annual rabies control program, Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay announced today.

"As a world-renowned leader in rabies research and control, Ontario is committed to protecting the health and safety of our people, pets, and wildlife," said Ramsay. "Rabies has not spread in Ontario like it has in other countries and that’s because of our vigilance and stringent control efforts."

Animals move around more in the spring and summer and over the next few months the ministry will use a variety of control measures to fight rabies in wildlife, including:

• widespread aerial distribution and localized ground distribution of rabies vaccine baits in late summer
• trap-vaccinate-release programs throughout the summer
• maintaining a ‘high-risk’ area in eastern Ontario and point infection control if cases of raccoon rabies are confirmed in new areas. In the ‘high-risk’ area, people can’t relocate wildlife beyond one kilometre to stop the spread of rabies.

There was only one confirmed raccoon rabies case in Ontario last year, down from four in 2004. There were 34 cases of fox-strain rabies in 2005, down 98 per cent from 1989, the year Ontario started a large-scale vaccination program to control fox rabies. In July 2005, the ‘high-risk’ area in eastern Ontario was reduced by about 65 per cent as a result of the ministry’s successful control programs against raccoon rabies.

Regional health units, wildlife rehabilitators, municipalities, licensed fur harvesters, wildlife control agents and aboriginal communities are all key partners in Ontario ’s rabies control program. The program has been so successful that it has been adopted by several states and provinces. New Brunswick successfully eliminated raccoon strain rabies using methods pioneered in Ontario.

For further information on rabies prevention and control operations, visit the Rabies in Ontario website at http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/en/Business/Rabies/.

For More Information

Jolanta Kowalski
Communications Services Branch
416-314-2106

General Enquiries

Natural Resources Information Centre
1-800-667-1940
TTY 1-866-686-6072 (Hearing Impaired)