Rabies isn't something most Americans expect to encounter in everyday life. Human cases remain rare, and for many people the disease feels like something they learned about years ago rather than a current health concern.
But rabies has been receiving renewed attention in 2026.
On September 10, 2026, a national health advisory reported increases in people being exposed to rabid or potentially rabid animals in several parts of the United States. During July and August, rabies-related inquiries were 17% higher than during the same period in 2025, while the use of preventive treatment following possible exposure also increased. (CDC)
This doesn't mean the United States is experiencing a widespread outbreak of human rabies. It does, however, make this a good time to understand how rabies is transmitted, which animals present the greatest concern, what symptoms can look like and—most importantly—what you should do if you or someone in your family has a possible exposure.
What Is Rabies?
Rabies is a viral disease that affects the central nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord. It is transmitted by infected mammals, usually when infectious saliva enters the body through a bite or scratch.
What makes rabies particularly serious is what happens once the virus reaches the nervous system and symptoms begin. At that stage, the disease is nearly always fatal.
Fortunately, there is another side to the story: rabies is preventable after an exposure when appropriate treatment is given before symptoms develop.
That difference—between acting after an exposure and waiting until someone becomes ill—is one of the most important things to understand about rabies.
Why Are Rabies Exposures Increasing?
During the summer of 2026, several U.S. jurisdictions reported increases in encounters involving rabid or potentially rabid animals. There were also mass-exposure events in which multiple people may have been exposed to the same animal or animals. (CDC)
The increase has been large enough to affect the amount of preventive treatment being used. Pharmacy data reported in the September advisory showed use of the two licensed human rabies vaccines running approximately 33% higher than during the comparable period in 2025. Use of human rabies immune globulin was approximately 76% higher. (CDC)
Those numbers shouldn't be interpreted as meaning that tens of thousands of Americans are developing rabies. Preventive treatment is given precisely because healthcare professionals want to stop the disease from developing after a credible exposure.
In fact, an estimated 1.4 million people in the United States seek medical care each year following animal contact, while approximately 100,000 receive rabies post-exposure prophylaxis.
Which Animals Carry Rabies in the United States?
When people think about rabies, they often picture an aggressive dog. Dogs remain an important source of human rabies in some parts of the world, but the situation in the United States is different.
Wildlife is the primary concern. Bats, raccoons, skunks and foxes are among the animals most commonly associated with rabies in the U.S.
Other mammals can become infected as well. Cats, dogs, livestock and other animals may develop rabies if they're exposed to infected wildlife, which is one reason keeping pets appropriately vaccinated is so important.
Small rodents such as squirrels, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, chipmunks, rats and mice are rarely infected with rabies, and bites from these animals are generally handled differently during a rabies risk assessment.
The species involved is therefore important—but so are the circumstances.
What Does a Rabid Animal Look Like?
There's a familiar image of a rabid animal behaving wildly, foaming at the mouth and trying to attack everything around it. Rabies can certainly cause abnormal aggression, but relying on that stereotype can be misleading.
An infected animal may behave unusually in other ways. A normally nocturnal wild animal might appear at an unusual time, an animal may seem confused or disoriented, or it may have difficulty moving normally. Some infected animals can become unusually tame rather than aggressive.
Salivation, difficulty swallowing, weakness, paralysis and unusual vocalization can also occur.
The problem is that you cannot reliably determine whether an animal has rabies simply by looking at it. Injuries, poisoning and other diseases can produce strange behavior too.
If a wild animal is acting abnormally, the safest approach is to keep your distance and contact local animal-control or public-health authorities when appropriate.
Why Are Bats Such an Important Part of the Rabies Conversation?
Bats play an important ecological role and aren't animals people should fear simply because they see one flying outdoors. But when it comes to human rabies in the United States, direct contact with bats deserves particular attention.
A bat bite can be surprisingly small and may not leave the type of obvious wound people expect from an animal bite. That can make some encounters more difficult to assess.
If you know a bat bit or scratched you, seek medical advice promptly. Direct physical contact with a bat should also be evaluated if you cannot confidently rule out a bite or scratch.
Situations involving young children or people who may not be able to reliably describe what happened can require particular care.
Simply seeing a bat outside isn't an exposure. The concern is physical contact or another situation in which contact may reasonably have occurred.
What Should You Do If an Animal Bites or Scratches You?
First, don't panic. An animal bite doesn't automatically mean you've been exposed to rabies, however do not ignore it either.
Wash the wound thoroughly with soap and water. Current guidance recommends washing for approximately 15 minutes, which can help reduce contamination at the wound site. You should then contact a healthcare professional or appropriate public-health authority so the exposure can be assessed. (CDC)
The assessment may consider what kind of animal was involved, where the encounter occurred, whether the animal is available for observation or testing, whether the encounter actually meets the definition of an exposure, and whether you've previously been vaccinated against rabies.
Other medical issues may also need attention after an animal bite. Depending on the wound and circumstances, clinicians may consider bacterial infection, wound care and your tetanus immunity as well. USLabTesting has more general information about immunity and titer testing, although a possible rabies exposure itself requires professional medical assessment rather than routine consumer testing.
Why You Shouldn't Wait for Symptoms
This is perhaps the most important part of understanding rabies.
After an exposure, someone may feel completely normal. The virus can have an incubation period lasting weeks or months before symptoms appear.
That quiet period can create a false sense of reassurance. Someone might assume that because the bite happened several weeks ago and they feel fine, there's nothing to worry about.
With rabies, prevention is intended to happen during that symptom-free period.
Once neurological symptoms develop, the situation changes dramatically. This is why healthcare professionals make decisions based on the exposure itself rather than waiting to see whether the person becomes ill.
What Are the Early Symptoms of Rabies?
The first symptoms can be surprisingly ordinary. Fever, headache, weakness, fatigue and a general feeling of being unwell may occur.
Some people develop unusual sensations around the location of the original exposure. These can include pain, tingling, prickling or itching.
Those symptoms aren't unique to rabies, of course. A headache or fever after an unrelated illness doesn't mean someone has the disease.
The importance of these symptoms changes when there's a history of a genuine rabies exposure that hasn't been appropriately managed.
What Happens as Rabies Progresses?
As the virus affects the brain and nervous system, symptoms become much more serious.
A person may experience agitation, anxiety, confusion, hallucinations or abnormal behavior. Difficulty swallowing, excessive saliva, seizures and paralysis can occur as the disease progresses.
One of the symptoms most closely associated with rabies is hydrophobia, often described as a fear of water. The reality is more complicated than simply being frightened of water: painful involuntary muscle spasms can occur when someone attempts to swallow liquids, making drinking extremely difficult.
Another unusual symptom is aerophobia, in which moving air can trigger spasms or discomfort.
By the time neurological symptoms like these appear, rabies is extraordinarily difficult to treat successfully. That's why public-health efforts concentrate so heavily on preventing the disease after an exposure.
What Happens After a Possible Exposure?
Not every person who encounters an animal needs rabies shots.
Healthcare and public-health professionals perform a rabies risk assessment to determine whether treatment is appropriate. Sometimes the animal can be observed. In other circumstances, the animal may be tested for rabies.
If the exposure is considered significant and treatment is recommended, the person may receive rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, commonly called PEP.
For most people who haven't previously been vaccinated against rabies, this includes careful wound treatment, human rabies immune globulin and a series of rabies vaccinations.
The purpose isn't to treat established rabies. It's to give the immune system the protection it needs before the virus causes clinical disease.
Why Rabies Treatment Isn't Simply “A Rabies Shot”
People often talk about getting “the rabies shot,” but post-exposure treatment can involve more than one injection.
For someone who hasn't previously been vaccinated, human rabies immune globulin may be administered around the wound when possible, providing immediate antibodies while the vaccine begins stimulating the person's own immune response.
The rabies vaccine is then given as a series. Most previously unvaccinated people receive vaccine on days 0, 3, 7 and 14. People with certain immune-system conditions may require an additional dose and follow-up assessment. (CDC)
Someone who has previously completed appropriate rabies vaccination is treated differently and generally doesn't receive rabies immune globulin.
This is one reason medical history matters when evaluating an exposure.
Can the Animal Be Tested for Rabies?
Sometimes the most useful testing isn't performed on the person at all—it's performed on the animal.
When appropriate, public-health laboratories can test an animal for evidence of rabies. The circumstances depend heavily on the species and whether the animal is available.
In other situations, certain domestic animals may be observed for a defined period under veterinary or public-health guidance.
People shouldn't attempt to capture a potentially rabid wild animal themselves. Doing so could turn one possible exposure into another.
If an animal needs to be captured or tested, animal-control or public-health professionals can advise on how that should be handled.
What About Your Pets?
One of the easiest ways to reduce rabies risk is also one of the oldest: keep dogs, cats and other eligible pets appropriately vaccinated.
A pet that encounters a rabid wild animal can potentially become infected, creating risk not only for the animal but also for the people around it.
Avoid allowing pets to interact with wildlife whenever possible, and don't encourage wild animals to approach your home by leaving pet food or other attractants outside.
If your pet is bitten or attacked by a wild animal, contact your veterinarian promptly rather than simply monitoring the animal at home.
What If You Find a Bat in Your House?
This is one of the situations that creates the most anxiety.
Finding a bat flying around a house doesn't automatically mean everyone inside has been exposed to rabies. The important question is whether direct physical contact may have occurred.
If someone definitely touched the bat, was bitten or scratched, or cannot reliably determine whether contact occurred, seek professional advice. Circumstances involving a young child or another person unable to clearly describe the encounter may need special consideration.
If possible, don't release or destroy the bat before speaking with appropriate authorities if there has been a potential human exposure. In some situations the animal may be able to be tested, which could influence whether treatment is necessary.
At the same time, don't attempt to catch a bat with bare hands.
Does Every Bite Mean You Need Rabies Treatment?
No.
This point is important because the recent increase in preventive treatment doesn't mean every wildlife encounter requires vaccination.
A bite from an animal known to carry rabies in an area where rabies is circulating presents a different situation from an encounter in which saliva never touched broken skin or mucous membranes.
Whether the animal is available for testing or observation can also completely change the assessment.
That's why professional risk assessment is preferable to either extreme—assuming there's nothing to worry about or assuming that every animal bite means rabies.
Can Rabies Be Tested for in Humans?
Testing does exist, but diagnosing human rabies is highly specialized. It isn't comparable to having routine blood work performed after an animal bite.
When doctors genuinely suspect rabies disease, specialized laboratories may examine several types of specimens, potentially including saliva, blood, cerebrospinal fluid and a small skin biopsy.
There isn't one simple test that someone can take immediately after an exposure to determine whether they've “caught rabies.”
For someone who has just experienced a possible exposure, the important decision is therefore whether preventive treatment is needed, not whether routine blood work is normal.
What If the Animal Bite Happened Weeks or Months Ago?
People sometimes only begin worrying about an animal encounter long after it happened. Perhaps they remember a bat in a bedroom, reconsider a strange animal bite while reading about rabies, or discover that rabies was later identified in animals in their area.
If you believe you had a genuine exposure that was never evaluated, don't simply assume too much time has passed.
Rabies can have a variable incubation period, and a healthcare professional or public-health department can assess the circumstances of the original encounter and advise you appropriately.
The key is not to wait for symptoms before raising the question.
Why the Recent Increase Matters—Without Panicking
Health alerts can sometimes sound frightening when they're reduced to headlines or social-media posts.
“Rabies exposures rising across America” can easily be interpreted as meaning there's a major epidemic of people developing rabies.
That's not what the current situation means.
The recent advisory was prompted by increased animal rabies activity, human exposures, greater use of post-exposure treatment and reports of errors in how that treatment was sometimes administered. Human rabies itself remains rare in the United States. (CDC)
The useful takeaway isn't to become afraid of wildlife. It's to know what to do when an unusual encounter actually occurs.
Simple Ways to Reduce Your Risk
You don't need to avoid the outdoors or worry every time you see wildlife. A few sensible precautions make a meaningful difference.
Avoid touching or feeding wild mammals, particularly animals that appear sick, injured or behave unusually. Teach children not to approach unfamiliar wildlife, even when an animal seems friendly.
Keep pets appropriately vaccinated and discourage them from interacting with wild animals. Secure garbage, pet food and other things that may attract wildlife around your home.
And if a bite or scratch does occur, wash the wound and get advice rather than trying to judge the risk entirely on your own.
If you're interested in other infectious-disease information, you can also read our guide to measles and our broader article on childhood immunization.
The Most Important Thing to Remember
Rabies is frightening largely because of what happens once the disease develops. But focusing only on that part of the story misses something extremely important.
Rabies can be prevented after an exposure when the situation is recognized and appropriate care is provided in time.
If you're bitten or scratched by a wild animal—or have direct contact with a bat or another animal that may carry rabies—wash the area thoroughly and seek professional advice promptly.
Don't wait to see whether you develop symptoms, and don't assume that feeling fine several days later means the question has been settled.
Most animal encounters won't result in rabies. The purpose of knowing the warning signs and understanding exposure isn't to make people frightened of animals; it's to make sure that on the rare occasion when an exposure really matters, people know what to do.
Important Medical Information
This article is intended for general educational purposes and isn't a substitute for individual medical advice. If you've been bitten, scratched or otherwise potentially exposed to an animal that may carry rabies, contact a healthcare professional or your local or state public-health department promptly for an individual risk assessment.
If you're experiencing severe or rapidly worsening symptoms or another medical emergency, seek emergency medical attention.