Animal Pathology

Florida is one of the 49 of 50 U.S. states with local rabies transmission. Rabies is an acute viral infection that is transmitted to humans by a bite or by exposure of broken skin to an infected animal's saliva. Human cases of rabies in the U.S. is rare. Recently, more cases of human rabies have been linked to bats and raccoons than the previous reservoir, dogs.

Chronic wasting disease, a deadly neurodegenerative disease in deer, has been detected in Florida. While not infectious to humans, CWD has the potential to wipe out deer populations across the country.