{"id":12368,"date":"2025-01-09T21:47:32","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T02:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/?page_id=12368"},"modified":"2025-01-09T21:48:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T02:48:19","slug":"raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/","title":{"rendered":"Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>January 9, 2025<strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Media Contact: <\/strong>Tara Rose, tara.rose@vdh.virginia.gov<strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>PRINCE GEORGE, Va. &#8211; The Crater Health District has received confirmation that a raccoon has tested positive for the rabies virus near Arwood Road in Prince George, VA. \u00a0The Prince George Health Department and Prince George Animal Control encourage animal owners to confirm that all pet vaccinations are current and report any stray animals.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone having information regarding exposure to this animal (bite, scratch, or contact with saliva by open wound or eyes, nose, mouth) should contact the Crater Health District Environmental Health Office, at 804-863-1652. Exposures also include direct contact between your pet and the rabid animal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPlease notify public health officials or animal control immediately if you live near Arwood Road and think you or your pet(s) had contact with the infected raccoon. The community\u2019s safety is our priority. Make sure your pets are vaccinated, especially against rabies, \u201csaid Crater Health District Director Alton Hart, Jr., MD, MPH, MDiv.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRabies is a preventable disease. We encourage all pet owners to vaccinate their animals to protect them and the community,\u201d shares Toinette Waldon, Environmental Health Manager, Crater Health District.<\/p>\n<p>The Health Department strongly advises that people take the following steps to prevent families and pets\u00a0from being exposed to rabies:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Vaccinate all cats, dogs, and ferrets against rabies and keep them up to date.<\/li>\n<li>Avoid contact with wild animals or stray cats and dogs.<\/li>\n<li>Report stray animals to your local animal control agency.<\/li>\n<li>Enjoy wildlife from a distance \u2013 don\u2019t feed or encourage wild animals or stray cats and dogs to visit your premises<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To report a stray and\/or suspicious animal, please contact Prince George Animal Control at 804-991-3200 have concerns about exposure to rabies, contact your healthcare provider immediately. For more information on protecting your family from rabies, call 804-863-1652 or visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/environmental-epidemiology\/rabies-control\/\">www.vdh.virginia.gov\/environmental-epidemiology\/rabies-control\/<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/rabies\/\">www.cdc.gov\/rabies\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January 9, 2025 Media Contact: Tara Rose, tara.rose@vdh.virginia.gov\u00a0 Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George PRINCE GEORGE, Va. &#8211; The Crater Health District has received confirmation that a raccoon has tested positive for the rabies virus near Arwood Road in Prince George, VA. \u00a0The Prince George Health Department and Prince George Animal Control encourage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[692,372,34],"class_list":["post-12368","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","tag-alton-hart-jr","tag-crater-health-district","tag-rabies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George - Newsroom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George - Newsroom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 9, 2025 Media Contact: Tara Rose, tara.rose@vdh.virginia.gov\u00a0 Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George PRINCE GEORGE, Va. &#8211; 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The Crater Health District has received confirmation that a raccoon has tested positive for the rabies virus near Arwood Road in Prince George, VA. \u00a0The Prince George Health Department and Prince George Animal Control encourage [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/","og_site_name":"Newsroom","article_modified_time":"2025-01-10T02:48:19+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/","url":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/","name":"Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George - Newsroom","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2025-01-10T02:47:32+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-10T02:48:19+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/raccoon-tests-positive-for-rabies-in-prince-george\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Raccoon Tests Positive for Rabies in Prince George"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/","name":"Newsroom","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12368"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12370,"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12368\/revisions\/12370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vdh.virginia.gov\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}