Longitudinal analysis of raccoon rabies in West Virginia, 2000-2015
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Veterinary Medicine, Epidemiology, Public Health
- Keywords
- West Virginia, Longitudinal Analysis, Rabies, Infectious Disease
- Copyright
- © 2017 Plants et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2017. Longitudinal analysis of raccoon rabies in West Virginia, 2000-2015. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3403v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3403v1
Abstract
Animal borne rabies is a source of infection in humans, and raccoons (Procyon lotor) are the primary terrestrial reservoir in West Virginia (WV). To assess the behavior and status of raccoon variant rabies virus (RRV) in WV, a longitudinal analysis for the period 2000-2015 was performed, using data provided by the state Bureau of Public Health. Analytic approaches included linear-mixed, Poisson, and zero inflated Poisson regressions. Each of these approaches indicated that there had been a reduction in numbers of RRV positive animals over the study period, predominantly due to a decrease in raccoon infections. Non-raccoon species did not appear to have a similar decline, however. This has implications for the preventive measures currently being implemented. Spatial analyses of RRV and further examination of the virus in non-raccoon species are warranted.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.