CDC Warns Rabies-Related Inquiries Jumped 17% This Summer Amid Mass Exposure Events In New Alert

ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a formal health advisory Thursday warning of a sharp nationwide increase in reported human rabies exposures this summer, urging doctors to be vigilant about proper risk assessment and treatment as multiple states reported mass exposure events involving more than one person at a time.

From July through August, the CDC received 17% more rabies-related inquiries than during the same period in 2025, according to the agency’s Health Alert Network advisory, which flagged both a rise in human exposures to rabid or possibly rabid animals and errors in how post-exposure treatment was being administered by some providers.

“During the summer of 2026, reports of animal exposures and rabies post-exposure vaccinations have increased across the country,” the CDC said in its statement.

The scale of the increase was also reflected in pharmacy utilization data. According to weekly pharmacy figures as of Sept. 2, use of the two rabies vaccines licensed in the United States, Imovax and RabAvert, rose an estimated 33% compared with the same period last year, while use of the two licensed human rabies immunoglobulin products, KEDRAB and HyperRab, jumped 76% over that same comparison window. The CDC said at least eight state health departments have separately reported increases in rabies post-exposure prophylaxis use, treatment administration errors, or both, since July.

Despite the surge in demand, the agency emphasized that there is currently no shortage of either rabies vaccine or rabies immunoglobulin in the United States. Even so, the CDC stressed the importance of administering treatment correctly, given the risks tied to both inadequate care and unnecessary overtreatment.

“Proper administration of rabies vaccine and human rabies immune globulin is critical to ensuring patients receive effective protection while avoiding unnecessary treatment, costs, and strain on supplies,” the CDC said.

The agency’s advisory detailed several specific administration errors that have been reported by state health departments in recent weeks, including vaccines being given in the gluteal area rather than the recommended injection site, failure to properly infiltrate immunoglobulin directly into and around a wound, and instances in which immunoglobulin was improperly mixed with vaccine doses in the same syringe.

The CDC’s alert followed a high-profile rabies outbreak at a petting zoo in North Carolina, where baby goats tested positive for the virus less than two weeks before the advisory was issued, an incident that reportedly exposed hundreds of visitors to potential infection. Beyond that outbreak, recent local reports cited in connection with the advisory span a wide range of locations and animal species. Health officials in Suffolk, Virginia, confirmed a raccoon within city limits had tested positive for rabies, while a dog in Mire, Louisiana, also tested positive, prompting a warning from local veterinarians. Elmira, New York, has reported multiple rabid cats and skunks in recent weeks, and a rabies-infected bat was discovered earlier this year inside a shower house at Yosemite National Park.

Rabies is a viral disease that attacks the central nervous system and is almost always fatal once symptoms begin to appear, but the disease is considered nearly entirely preventable if post-exposure treatment is administered promptly, before symptoms start. That treatment regimen typically consists of an immediate dose of human rabies immune globulin, an antibody medication that provides protection while the body’s own immune response develops, combined with a series of at least four rabies vaccine doses administered over several weeks. According to the CDC, the regimen is nearly 100% effective when administered correctly and promptly following a potential exposure.

The CDC also noted an important distinction in its guidance regarding who should receive the immunoglobulin component of treatment specifically.

“People who have been previously vaccinated or are receiving pre-exposure prophylaxis for rabies should not receive human rabies immune globulin,” the agency said.

According to the CDC, roughly 100,000 people receive rabies post-exposure prophylaxis in the United States each year following a potential exposure, out of an estimated 1.4 million people who seek medical evaluation annually after some form of animal contact. Given the disease’s near-total fatality rate once symptoms develop, the CDC has continued urging anyone bitten, scratched, or otherwise potentially exposed to a wild or unusually behaving animal to take the situation seriously rather than dismissing what might initially appear to be a minor scratch.

Recommended immediate steps following a potential exposure include thoroughly washing the affected wound with soap and water for a full 15 minutes, followed by contacting a health care provider or local public health department the same day to determine whether post-exposure treatment is warranted, rather than waiting to see whether symptoms develop before seeking medical attention.

The CDC’s advisory was distributed through its Health Alert Network, the agency’s primary communication channel for disseminating urgent public health information to doctors, hospital networks and state and local health officials nationwide. The alert cited research published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association examining national rabies surveillance trends in 2024, alongside earlier research published in JAMA Network Open examining rabies risk and post-exposure prophylaxis administration patterns across the United States.

With rabies-related inquiries and treatment utilization both climbing sharply compared with last year, the CDC’s advisory underscores the agency’s effort to balance two competing public health priorities heading into the fall: ensuring that anyone genuinely exposed to a rabid or potentially rabid animal receives prompt and properly administered treatment, while also working to prevent unnecessary or improperly administered doses that could strain existing rabies vaccine and immunoglobulin supplies as reported exposures continue to rise across multiple states nationwide.