TRUMBULL COUNTY Shrinking budget causes state to cut rabies program

Funding was also cut to Columbiana County.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The Ohio Department of Health has cut funding for a Trumbull County program designed to prevent the continued spread of rabies westward from Pennsylvania.
The department of health cited shrinking budgets in a letter to Trumbull County health commissioner Dr. James Enyeart announcing that a $33,000 grant for the program would be canceled next year.
Funds from the grant were used to test suspect animals, educate the public about rabies and pay half the salary of a health department worker who spread vaccine baits. Officials have fought the progress of the disease westward by dispersing pellets containing rabies vaccine that appear appetizing to raccoons.
By vaccinating raccoons, officials hope to stop the disease from spreading to dogs, and then to humans. There were two confirmed cases of animal rabies in Trumbull County last year and none this year, according to ODH.
"From our actual experience in the community, we have obviously done very well," Enyeart said. "If the program is diminished, probably after a while there will be a return of the problem."
Others cut
Funding to rabies prevention programs in Ashtabula, Belmont, Columbiana, Jefferson, Trumbull and Washington counties was cut, said ODH spokesman Jay Carey.
However, he said raccoon bait would continue to be dropped from airplanes near the Pennsylvania and West Virginia borders, and ODH plans to find funding for county departments to continue spreading the bait by hand or from slow-moving cars.
"We are definitely going to maintain a vaccine barrier along the state's borders," Carey said.
"We don't want to have rabies further enter the state."