Dozens of students, staff members at Rockland County private school forced to get rabies shots

By TONY AIELLO

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    POMONA, New York (WCBS) — There was a rabies scare recently at a private school in Rockland County.

Dozens of students and staff are getting post-exposure vaccines, after coming into contact with a rabid kitten.

At the Summit School in Nyack, 85 students and several staff members were getting rabies shots at a local hospital.

The school community was fostering several rescue kittens through Summit’s Pets for Purpose therapy program, when one of the felines became ill, died, and was found to be infected with rabies.

When asked if anyone at the school was reported to have been scratched or bitten, Nixie Gueits, who runs Four Legs Good, a respected animal rescue that operates the Rockland shelter, said, “I was told by the school that the answer to that is ‘No.'”

Gueits said the rabid kitten, which was taken from a feral litter, had been checked by a vet before being placed at the school. It was 4 weeks old. Rabies vaccines are typically given to felines at 12 to 16 weeks.

“We just try to take as many precautions as possible. We feel terrible, but it’s a reality,” Gueits said.

County and state health officials urged everyone at the school who had contact with the kitten to get the four-shot rabies vaccine.

In a statement, the state Department of Health said, in part, “Human rabies does not have a treatment and is almost always fatal, which is why vaccine and human rabies immune globulin is in the best interest of anyone exposed.”

“There are very few, if any, side effects to the new vaccine that is now available for rabies,” Dr. Waleed Javaid said.

Javaid, an infection control expert, said because rabies in humans is so deadly, getting the shots as soon as possible after possible exposure is critical.

“The risk is extremely high. The risk of the vaccine, itself, is extremely low. Absolutely, it makes sense,” Javaid said.

Summit School told CBS New York it is working to support students and staff members and called the situation “incredibly unfortunate.”

Four Legs Good is reviewing protocols for its feline fostering program.

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