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Residents of North Carolina’s capital have been put on rabies alert after a rabid fox bit a little girl while she was playing in her local street.
The 4-year-old girl suffered bites on her leg when the animal attacked her in a quiet suburb of Raleigh on Saturday.
Onlookers say the fox also tried to bite her foot, but her mother grabbed the girl and quickly took her to the hospital.
Local health officials have warned residents of Warren County, which covers Raleigh and has a population of 500,000 people, to be on the lookout for rabid animals.
The girl is said to be recovering well and has received anti-rabies antibodies and two injections of the rabies vaccine. The fox has been captured and slaughtered.
The girl was attacked on this road in a quiet suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina.
The image above shows the scene where the attack took place, with chalk marks on the ground. The fox came out of the nearby bushes.
She is believed to be at least the second girl attacked by a rabid animal this year, after a girl was also bitten by a rabid fox in upstate New York.
Each year in the U.S., one to three people are diagnosed with rabies, which is transmitted through bites or scratches from infected animals.
Cases are serious because the virus can infect the spinal cord and cause neurological symptoms including confusion, agitation and foaming at the mouth.
Almost all people infected with rabies die from the infection.
But infections after bites from rabid animals can be prevented if someone receives a shot of the rabies vaccine and a shot of antibodies to fight the virus on the same day as the bite.
The patient should also receive vaccine injections on days three, seven and 14 after the bite.
Local reports say the girl was attacked by the rabid fox in Spiedie Court, a quiet area of the city’s suburbs.
Raleigh Animal Control was also called to the scene where the rabid fox was trapped and the animal was then euthanized before being sent to a lab for testing.
Results are expected in the coming days.
According to locals, the area behind the houses was initially heavily forested, but construction work is currently disturbing local wildlife.
It comes after an upstate New York girl, also four years old, was bitten by a rabid fox in early January.
The girl was attacked shortly before noon at a home on Hillside Drive and was quickly rushed to the hospital for treatment.
The fox then attacked a domestic dog in the area before officials captured it and euthanized it.
The girl was rushed to the hospital for rabies treatment.
Warning signs that an animal is infected with rabies include erratic behavior and foaming at the mouth.