MMWR

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report

Human Exposure to a Rabid Bat – Montana, 2008

Press Contact: Christopher Cox, Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, NCZVED
Phone: (404) 639-0045

After potential large-scale rabies exposures, health-care providers should assist public health authorities in ensuring that people who are at risk of rabies infection receive postexposure prophylaxis (PEP), while also minimizing the number of people receiving PEP unnecessarily. Rabies is a fatal disease that is preventable with rabies PEP – a costly regimen of immune globulin and multiple vaccine injections. People potentially exposed to rabies virus through animal contact require evaluation to determine whether PEP is indicated. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) sets guidelines for appropriate rabies PEP use. These guidelines are followed by public health officials tasked with evaluating persons for rabies exposure. Large-scale contact with a rabid animal generates high public anxiety, which can lead to PEP use that deviates from ACIP recommendations. This report describes such an incident which occurred in Montana in 2008. After potential large-scale rabies exposures, advice from physicians and public health officials should be consistent with ACIP recommendations to ensure appropriate rabies PEP use.

Apparent Disappearance of the Black-White Infant Mortality Gap – Dane County, Wisconsin, 1990-2007

Press Contact: Jeff Golden, Public Information Officer
Public Health Madison Dane County
Phone: (608) 243-0302

For black infant mortality, the Dane County experience demonstrates that positive change can happen. Since 2002, black infant mortality in Dane County, Wisconsin has declined by 67 percent eliminating the 3:1 black-white infant mortality gap that existed for all of the 1990s in Dane County and that is still prevalent in most if not all of the United States. The Dane County trend is driven primarily by a sharp decline in the number of premature births and fetal deaths that occur during the six and seventh month of pregnancy. A collaborative investigation lead by Public Health Madison Dane County and the University of Wisconsin aims at uncovering the causes behind these trends through comparative analysis of birth records, pregnancy chart reviews, interviews with new mothers and community asset mapping.

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES