- For additional information: Rabies in Canada
Rabies Surveillance as of December 23rd, 2020
As reported by the Wildlife Research and Monitoring Section, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry:
We are currently at 480 cases of raccoon strain, and 21 cases of fox strain rabies in Ontario to date.
This marks the end of the calendar year for MNRF’s rabies program. In 2020, there were 9 raccoon strain and 0 fox strain rabies cases detected in southern Ontario, a ~60% decrease in rabies cases from 2019. In 2020, we tested 3,358 samples for rabies. Surveillance of this scale, especially this year, would not be possible without our partners – your on-going support and collaboration is much appreciated and is critical to the continuing success of rabies control efforts in the province.
The rabies lab will continue to test priority samples as a provincial essential service. MNRF’s rabies lab will be closed for the holidays from December 24th until January 4th. We will resume testing in early January.
Annual Summaries
Numbers in red in all tables are fox strain.
Numbers in black in all tables are raccoon strain.
2020
County | Raccoon | Skunk | Fox | Cat | Bovine | Dog | Total |
Brant | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Haldimand | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Halton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hamilton | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Huron | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Niagara | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
Norfolk | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Perth | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Waterloo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Waterloo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total Fox Strain | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total Raccoon Strain | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Number of DRIT tests: 575
Number of baits distributed: 0
Number of confirmatory tests performed by CFIA (Ontario only, including bats): 1
Number of confirmatory test performed by CFIA (Ontario only, terrestrial animals only): 0
Number of rabies positive terrestrial animals subject to virus variant typing by CFIA (Ontario only): 0
2019
County | Raccoon | Skunk | Fox | Cat | Bovine | Dog | Total |
Brant | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Haldimand | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Halton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hamilton | 6 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
Huron | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Niagara | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Norfolk | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Perth | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Waterloo | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Waterloo | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total Fox Strain | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Total Raccoon Strain | 9 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 22 |
Number of DRIT tests: >1900
Number of baits distributed: 0
Number of confirmatory tests performed by CFIA (Ontario only): 13
Number of rabies positive terrestrial animals subject to virus variant typing by CFIA (Ontario only): 11
2018
County | Raccoon | Skunk | Fox | Cat | Bovine | Total |
Brant | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
Haldimand | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Halton | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hamilton | 29 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 36 |
Huron | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Niagara | 10 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
Norfolk | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Perth | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Waterloo | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Waterloo | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
Total Fox Strain | 0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
Total Raccoon Strain | 50 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 65 |
Number of DRIT tests: >3,800
Number of baits distributed: 1,444,161
Number of confirmatory tests performed by CFIA (Ontario only): 81
Number of rabies positive terrestrial animals subject to virus variant typing by CFIA (Ontario only): 74
2017
County | Raccoon | Skunk | Fox | Cat | Bovine | Total |
Brant | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
Haldimand | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 |
Halton | 8 | 9 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 |
Hamilton | 45 | 19 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 65 |
Huron | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Niagara | 19 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 21 |
Perth | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
Waterloo | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
Total Fox Strain | 0 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 10 |
Total Raccoon Strain | 86 | 32 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 119 |
Number of DRIT tests: >4,000
Number of baits distributed: >1.1M
Number of confirmatory tests performed by CFIA (Ontario only): 138
Number of rabies positive terrestrial animals subject to virus variant typing by CFIA (Ontario only): 127
2016
County | Raccoon | Skunk | Fox | Cat | Llama | Bovine | Total |
Brant | 11 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
Haldimand | 17 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 18 |
Halton | 7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Hamilton | 126 | 76 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 204 |
Huron | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Niagara | 10 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 12 |
Perth | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
Total Fox Strain | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
Total Raccoon Strain | 171 | 81 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 255 |
Number of DRIT tests: >4,500
Number of baits distributed: >1.6 million
2015 (December only)
County | Raccoon | Bovine | Total |
Haldimand | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Hamilton | 9 | 0 | 9 |
Perth | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Total Fox Strain | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Total Raccoon Strain | 10 | 0 | 10 |
Number of DRIT tests: >150
Number of baits distributed: ~220,000