Openai/6935ad62-1d20-8013-82d6-55bc0e7e0896
This conversation was exported from ChatGPT[1]
gpt-5-1-thinking edit
User: How many cases of rabies in the U.S. edit
How many cases of rabies in the U.S. a year?
Assistant: For humans in the U.S.: edit
For humans in the U.S.:
- Human rabies cases: typically 1–3 cases per year are reported nationwide. NFID[2]
- In recent decades it has never exceeded 10 per year, and many years have zero deaths. CDC[3]
For context (not what you asked, but related):
- Animal rabies cases: about 4,000 confirmed rabid animals per year, mostly wildlife (bats, raccoons, skunks, foxes). AAHA[4]
- Roughly 60,000–100,000 people a year in the U.S. get post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) after potential exposure. CDC[5]
User: How many cases since 1978 edit
How many cases since 1978
Assistant: Short answer: we don’t have an exact published total for “since 1978,” but we can bracket it pretty tightly. edit
Short answer: we don’t have an exact published total for “since 1978,” but we can bracket it pretty tightly.
What we do know:
- CDC analysis: 125 human rabies cases in the U.S. from 1960–2018. CDC[6]
- Classic review: 38 cases from 1960–1979. PubMed[7]
- So 1980–2018 = 125 − 38 ≈ 87 cases.
- Recent CDC / surveillance data: - 2019: 0 - 2020: 0 - 2021: 5 deaths Wikipedia[8] - 2022: 0 Wikipedia[9] - 2023: 0 (no human cases in North America) PubMed[10] - 2024: 3 deaths (California, Minnesota, Kentucky) Wikipedia[11] - 2025 so far: 1 transplant-related death People.com[12]
That gives 9 cases from 2019–2025, so 1980–2025 ≈ 87 + 9 = 96 cases.
For 1978–79, we know of at least 4 bat-variant human cases (2 in 1978, 2 in 1979) from CDC/Texas tables, but there were likely a few additional non-bat cases; the detailed year-by-year breakdown for those two years isn’t accessible in a single open table. Texas Health Services[13]
Putting it together:
- Best estimate for U.S. human rabies cases from 1978 through early 2025: ≈100 cases total (roughly 96–105, depending on the exact 1978–79 count).
So: order of magnitude is about one hundred human cases in nearly 50 years, with only 0–5 per year and many years with none.
References edit
- ↑ "Rabies cases in U.S." ChatGPT. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "NFID". nfid.org. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "CDC". cdc.gov. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "AAHA". aaha.org. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "CDC". cdc.gov. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "CDC". cdc.gov. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "PubMed". pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "Wikipedia". en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "Wikipedia". en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "PubMed". pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "Wikipedia". en.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "People.com". people.com. Retrieved 2025-12-07.
- ↑ "Texas Health Services" (PDF). Texas Health Services. Retrieved 2025-12-07.