The U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, along with the Ohio Department of Health and local health agencies, will be dropping oral rabies vaccine baits in May throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
The USDA estimated that nearly 300,000 baits will be distributed in Ohio starting May 12 and continuing to May 24.
The baits will be dropped from small airplanes and helicopters in portions of Ashtabula, Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties. They also will be distributed on the ground in Ashtabula, Belle Vista, Conneaut, Edgewood, Hubbard, Salem, Warren and Youngstown.
More: Rabies vaccine baits to be dropped in Portage, Columbiana and Carroll counties
Why are oral rabies vaccine baits distributed in Ohio?
The bait drops are intended to prevent wildlife — usually raccoons — from spreading rabies. The vaccine bait, which is contained in a blister pack, is covered in a waxy green coating that has a sugar-vanilla smell. The odor attracts targeted wild animals who eat the baits and are then vaccinated against rabies.
What is rabies?
A raccoon peeks out of a rotten stump along the banks of the Black River.
Rabies is caused by a virus that infects the central nervous system in mammals. If exposure to the virus is not treated, it is almost always fatal.
The USDA estimated that the annual costs associated with detection, prevention and control of rabies exceed $600 million annually in the U.S. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 90% of reported rabies cases in the U.S. are in wildlife.
The oral rabies vaccine baits have been distributed through in Ohio since 1997.
The program in eastern Ohio will be repeated in August.
For more information about the National Rabies Management Program, visit: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/national-wildlife-programs/rabies.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: USDA, health officials dropping rabies vaccines in eastern Ohio