By RACHEL BOWMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 15:53 EST, 26 November 2023
UPDATED: 09:12 EST, 27 November 2023
An adorable stray kitten has sparked a huge rabies scare after being taken in by a Nebraska couple who the animal bit and scratched before dying.
The black-and-white tuxedo kitten was rescued by Madeline and Rich Wahl in Omaha after a friend found him, with the Wahls naming the doomed kitty Stanley.
Stanley barely weighed two pounds and had stopped eating and developed seizures when the Wahls took him to the veterinarian, according to The Washington Post.
One of his pupils was also bigger than the other.
The couple thought their new furry friend was having a bad reaction to medication for ringworm.
The vet suspected nearly two dozen possible causes for Stanley's illness - but considered rabies a remote possibility, and was stunned to discover that the kitten had it.
Stanley died the day after his trip to the vet's.
Urgent testing is now underway to see if he infected any of the 10 people he's estimated to have bitten or scratched, as well as other animals he may have come into contact with.
If the disease becomes widespread in pet populations, health officials say it could pose a threat to 7million people in the central US.
The main concern is how deadly rabies is if it's not caught early.
The disease is almost 100 percent fatal in humans if it is not treated before symptoms begin, but it cannot spread between people.
The overwhelming majority of rabies cases in people happens when someone is bitten by a rabid animal.
It is also possible, but rare, for people to get rabies if they have scratches or open wounds that are exposed to saliva or other fluids from an infected animal.
The only example of human to human transmission occurred when during organ transplants, where the donor was infected.
'We haven't had rabies in forever,' said Sharon Mix, the vet, who noted when she saw the kitten's pupils were different sizes.
Genetic testing revealed the kitten had a variant of rabies that is normally linked to raccoons east of Appalachia, and has never been seen before in Nebraska.
Douglas County Health officials health officials scrambled to vaccinate 1,000 raccoons in the local area to prevent more infections.
Rabies is considered 100 percent fatal in humans if it is not treated before symptoms begin.
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