ONTARIO GOVERNMENT MAKES COMMUNITIES SAFER

For Immediate Release
May 15, 2007

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 through its annual rabies control program, Natural Resources Minister David Ramsay said today.

“Ontario’s community approach to controlling rabies has successfully contained one of the world’s deadliest viruses,” said Ramsay.  “With the help of our partners, including universities, governments, wildlife rehabilitators and Aboriginal communities, we have made Ontario a world leader in rabies control.”

Since animals travel further in the spring and summer, the ministry will use a variety of control measures over the next few months 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 controlling local infections if cases of raccoon rabies are confirmed in new areas. 

To stop the spread of rabies in the “high-risk” area,  raccoons, foxes and skunks cannot be moved more than one kilometre from the point of capture.

There have been no cases of raccoon-strain rabies since September 2005, the longest period since 1999.  Only 40 cases of fox-strain rabies were confirmed in 2006, down 97 per cent from 1989, the year Ontario began a large-scale vaccination program to control fox rabies.  In July 2005, the high-risk area for raccoon rabies was reduced by approximately 65 per cent as a result of Ontario’s successful control program.

Key partners in Ontario’s rabies control program include regional health units, wildlife rehabilitators, municipalities, licensed fur harvesters, wildlife control agents and Aboriginal communities.  The program’s success has led several states and provinces to adopt the program.  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 ontario.ca/rabies.

For More Information

Anne-Marie Flanagan
Minister’s Office
416-327-0654

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)