Update: raccoon rabies epizootic--United States and Canada, 1999

In 1977, an outbreak of raccoon rabies was detected in an area on the West Virginia-Virginia border. Since then, the area affected by this distinct variant of rabies virus associated with raccoons has spread to Ohio in the west and New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine in the north. In addition, the once separate epizootics of rabies among raccoons in the southeastern and mid-Atlantic states converged in North Carolina. In July 1999, the raccoon rabies virus variant was reported from Ontario, Canada, on the New York border. This report describes the spread of this epizootic of raccoon rabies through mid-Atlantic and northeastern states and into Canada.