An unstabled yearling has died of rabies in the Western Cape, the provincial agriculture department disclosed on Friday. It was the first rabies case in the area in 17 years, said provincial agriculture minister Cobus Dowry.
Cautioning against alarm, he said it was probably an isolated case. ”We suspect that [the horse] must have been bitten by a rabid carrier, possibly a bat-eared fox,” he said, adding that the carrier ”would have died weeks ago”.
The horse had been at pasture on a farm between Somerset West and Stellenbosch with nine other horses for the past year.
It was euthanised on January 30, and a post-mortem was conducted at the Stellenbosch Veterinary Laboratory. The Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute confirmed the presence of rabies in a report on February 1, said Dowry.
A rabies vaccination campaign was already being conducted in a 3km zone around the affected farm, he said. An investigation was also under way to determine the carrier species.
Dowry advised farmers in and around the Helderberg municipality to be on the alert for wild animals showing abnormal behaviour, particularly aggression or lack of fear of people, paralysis or excessive salivation.
They were also asked to look out for carcasses lying around and to report their findings to the state veterinary Boland office on Tel: 021 808 5253. — Sapa