The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) will expand its anti-rabies efforts in the El Paso area this January as part of the agency’s 32nd annual Oral Rabies Vaccination Program (ORVP). The initiative, which has previously focused on aerial bait distribution along much of the Texas-Mexico border, was increased last year to include far West Texas. This expansion came in response to the Arizona Fox rabies variant now established in New Mexico and within 150 miles of the Texas border.
This year, DSHS will continue aerial vaccine bait drops and add hand-distribution of rabies vaccine baits in targeted areas around El Paso. Additional hand-distribution is planned for parts of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy counties.
“Our mission is to vaccinate wildlife along the borders of Texas to maintain herd immunity against rabies and keep new or previously eliminated rabies variants from becoming established in any part of Texas,” said Kathy Parker, ORVP Director and Field Surveillance Lead. “However, we continue to monitor all the counties of Texas for outbreaks and/or potential areas of rabies interest.”
Aerial distribution flights will begin from Alpine on January 16. Further flights are scheduled from Del Rio International Airport starting January 21, depending on weather conditions. The oral vaccine baits are produced by Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health USA Inc., packaged similarly to fast-food ketchup packets, and coated with fish oil and fish-meal crumbles to attract coyotes and foxes.
Officials say these baits do not pose a risk to pets, livestock or other wildlife. The annual project costs $2 million and receives funding from both the State of Texas and the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service/Wildlife Services.
During the two-week operation, between six and nine flights per day are planned. Aircraft will fly at altitudes between 500 and 1,000 feet above ground level, distributing about 693,600 oral rabies vaccine baits at a density of 50 baits per square mile. The Border Maintenance Zone for ORVP includes 19 counties: El Paso, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis, Presidio, Brewster, Pecos, Terrell, Val Verde, Kinney, Maverick, Zavala, Dimmit, Webb, Zapata, Starr, Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy.
The program has previously succeeded in reducing cases involving both domestic dog/coyote rabies variants as well as the Texas gray fox variant. Before ORVP began more than three decades ago human deaths due to canine rabies were occurring in Texas; many people exposed had to receive postexposure treatment.
In 1994 there were 122 confirmed animal cases involving the domestic dog/coyote variant. After initial bait drops started in South Texas in 1995 that number fell dramatically—to zero by 2000. Only two additional animal cases have been reported since then (in 2001 and 2004), both near the Rio Grande River likely linked to cross-border wildlife movement.
For gray fox variant rabies—targeted since air-drops began in West/Central Texas in 1996—more than 240 animal cases were recorded statewide in 1995 but none after May 2009 except for a single cow case confirmed in 2013; expanded vaccination afterward prevented further spread.
Since ORVP’s launch no human cases have been attributed to these specific rabies virus variants within Texas.
