A traveling petting zoo has become the center of a mini health crisis in North Carolina.
After recently hosting events for elderly people and schoolchildren, several of its adorable baby goats tested positive for rabies, The New York Times reported, in a situation that the zoo’s owner is calling a “nightmare.”
Now, state officials are scrambling to get the word out, stressing how deadly the virus can be without immediate treatment.
“Rabies is almost always fatal in mammals, including people, unless medications to prevent infections are given before symptoms develop,” the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement, per the NYT.
State health officials suspect that the goats were exposed to rabies by a skunk that infiltrated their pen in late July. The owner of the Harmony-based zoo, Misty Love, said that she kept the goats in an isolated pen because they were too young to receive a rabies vaccine.
“It’s devastating,” Love told local broadcaster WSOC-TV. In a statement posted to social media, the company explained that the skunk was discovered in the pen, but was able to bite the goats before it was “disposed of.”
Lab tests confirmed that three of the goats had the rabies virus on August 28, the state health department said. A fourth goat is also suspected to have rabies, but wasn’t tested. All of the goats were “euthanized to prevent further spread,” the petting zoo said.
Parents who received warning were aghast.
“At first, I thought it was a joke,” one mother whose son saw the zoo’s goats, told ABC News, as quoted by WSOC-TV. “Then reality set in as to how serious this situation was, and I panicked.”
Confirmed cases of humans being infected by rabies are exceedingly rare in the US, with fewer than ten deaths from the virus each year, according to the CDC — though the dangers it poses are so formidable that over a million people seek treatment for a possible rabies exposure annually. Most of the time, humans are exposed to the virus from bats, raccoons, skunks, and foxes.
Any rabies scare needs to be acted on immediately. It can take weeks for symptoms to develop, but once they do, it’s often too late.
The health department called on anyone who visited the traveling zoo between July 28 and August 27 to contact local health officials to see if they need treatment. During that period, the zoo visited an assisted-living center, a back-to-school event, and six private events.
Add to it all that under president Trump, the CDC paused helping states offer rabies testing earlier this year, and it’s unclear if it’s resumed that program since.
More on diseases: Authorities Alarmed When Person With Measles Spends Entire Day Frolicking Around Universal Studios