Wildlife rabies management exemplifies the One Health framework, bringing together more than 100 partners from over 50 agencies each year to collaborate with the USDA National Rabies Management Program (NRMP).  This coordinated effort aims to prevent the spread of specific terrestrial rabies virus variants and ultimately eliminate them at local, regional, and national scales.  Core program components include interagency coordination and communication, comprehensive rabies surveillance (public health surveillance supplemented with enhanced rabies surveillance [ERS]), oral rabies va

Oral rabies vaccination (ORV) programs are a cornerstone of wildlife rabies control across North America. Since its licensure in 1997, RABORAL V-RG® has been widely used to immunize raccoons, coyotes, and foxes, contributing significantly to rabies prevention and elimination efforts. Despite its effectiveness, the vaccine is delivered in a non-biodegradable plastic sachet that remains in the environment.

In 2025, a 59-year-old female presented with various clinical signs including severe headaches, insomnia, paraesthesia of the lower back and left leg, and pudendal nerve symptoms. Further clinical signs developed over the following days, such as severe anxiety triggered by the prospect of food and drink, visual hallucinations, and progressive limb weakness. The patient’s history exposed that she was scratched on her left leg by a puppy in Morocco 4 months prior.  The patient had not sought medical attention for rabies post exposure vaccination following the scratch.

The Fluorescent Antibody Test (FAT), widely used for rabies diagnosis, requires highly trained personnel to accurately interpret specific fluorescence and reduce reader-dependent variability. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shown promise for detecting viral infection in tissue samples.  This study aimed to generate a curated dataset of FAT images and evaluate two AI architectures for detecting lyssaviruses in brain samples.

Molecular methods for pathogen detection are now in routine use worldwide, supported by widely available tools and a large workforce trained in the associated techniques. Yet the shift from rabies microscopy detection to PCR presents unique barriers in the collection and processing of animal brain samples. These barriers include biosafety, workforce training, tissue processing, equipment maintenance, and the accessioning, storage, and transport of infected tissue.

The enzootic range of raccoon rabies virus variant extends along eastern North America from Florida to Canada. Detailed genetic studies of raccoon rabies virus variant have often focused on the epizootic that led to the variant’s geographic range expansion and subsequent outbreaks in the northeastern United States and the Canadian-United States border. Here, we present a wide-scale genetic analysis of raccoon rabies variant highlighting the significant viral genetic diversity in the southeastern United States.

Rabies virus (RABV) is a nearly always fatal zoonotic pathogen, yet surveillance remains largely dependent on postmortem testing of brain tissue. This requirement limits broad-scale monitoring and hampers efforts to establish regional baselines of virus occurrence. In the Arizona–Mexico borderlands, where the common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is expected to expand northward, improved surveillance approaches are needed. 

Domestic animal vaccination is a key component of rabies prevention and helps reduce human exposure risk at the wildlife-domestic animal-human interface. However, gaps in access to veterinary services and preventive animal vaccination persist in some historically excluded communities. These challenges are compounded by veterinary workforce shortages, geographic barriers, changing wildlife movements and rabies risk patterns due to climate change, and recent increases in rabies cases in some northern, remote, and Arctic communities.

Objective. Serum rabies virus neutralizing antibodies (RVNA) do not cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), making them ineffective in treating rabies. We designed a recombinant adeno-associated virus vector (AAV-Rab) that crosses the BBB and expresses broadly neutralizing antibodies to rabies virus in serum and brain, independent of the host immune system.   

• Goal: Make Ecuador rabies-free by 2030, in line with the global Zero by 2030 initiative.
• Progress: No human deaths from dog-mediated rabies have been recorded since 2006, or from rabies transmitted by other mammals since 2011.
• Strategy: The Rabies-Free Ecuador project strengthens surveillance, prevention, education, and vaccination through a One Health approach.
• Key enabler: Public-private collaboration, international cooperation, science, and community engagement can turn curr