Cortez woman said not to have rabies

Cortez woman said not to have rabies

Oct 20, 2001

Tests on a suspected case of human rabies in a Cortez woman turned up negative, the Colorado Department of Health and Environment confirmed Thursday.

Medical staff at Southwest Memorial Hospital reported that they transferred a patient Monday who was exhibiting signs of human rabies, which if it reaches the symptom state is 100 percent fatal.

But John Pape, an epidemiologist with the state health department, said that an "alternative diagnosis" had been determined. Unless a disease constitutes a public health issue, patient information is not released, he said.

Pape said his office receives reports of three suspected cases of human rabies per year, but they usually turn up negative. The last confirmed case in Colorado was in 1931.

As a precaution, ER staff sent the patient to University Hospital shortly after she checked herself in showing symptoms associated with disease. The concern was heightened after the woman said she had been in contact with a cat while living in Georgia that later tested positive for rabies.

Health officials feared she had not been tested based on information that the woman had left the area for Cortez before health officials could administer vaccinations.

"Her contact with a positive cat raised the likelihood, but thankfully it was not," Pape said. "It was a false alarm."