SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR ANIMAL HEALTH
Little work has been done to accurately assess the impact of rabies on domestic and wild animal populations within Europe. Being weakly contagious, the infection does not need mass culling of stock animals to prevent its spread; nevertheless, in pet animals that are allowed to roam freely, non-vaccinated dogs or cats may have to be euthanized when their owner is living in close proximity to an identified case.
Thus, direct or indirect losses due to rabies in domestic animals are usually limited to the vicinity of outbreaks, although indirect costs associated with preventive pet vaccination can be substantial. Movement of pets can be restricted within the areas of infected zones. In France, the cumulative cost of fox rabies control including oral vaccination during the period 1986—1995 was estimated to be US$261 million1-32).Among wildlife in Europe, rabies is expected to have a transient effect on maintenance host populations such as the red fox; but the impact of EBLV infection on insectivorous bats remains undocumented. Spillover host populations could be affected by rabies where populations of large predators are confined to a small areas (bear, lynx or wolf, for instance), a context that can still occur in Europe.