A rabid gray fox bit a woman in her south Arlington driveway last week — the second such case in Virginia’s Washington suburbs in a five-day span.
The fox bit the woman May 9 in the 5200 block of South 12th Road before being captured and killed in her yard by animal control officers, county public health officials said Friday.
A state laboratory confirmed Wednesday that the fox was rabid, and the woman is receiving anti-rabies treatments, officials said.
“It’s a very unusual occurrence — there are a lot of fox sightings in Arlington and foxes in general do not pose a threat to people,” said Susan Sherman, a spokeswoman for the Animal Welfare League of Arlington.
Another rabid gray fox bit a Fredericksburg woman Wednesday as she was mowing her lawn. That animal was killed with a shovel by the woman’s neighbor.
Rabies is a viral disease that infects the nervous system of mammals and is spread through saliva. If not treated promptly, rabies is fatal.
While rare, rabies is endemic in the area, county officials said, and residents should avoid approaching wild animals.
There were 438 confirmed cases of animal rabies in Virginia and eight confirmed cases in Arlington between January and July of last year, state records show.
Arlington’s cases involved a bat, two cats and five raccoons.
Gray and red foxes are abundant in Virginia, although red foxes are usually spotted more often than gray ones in urban areas, said John Rohm, a wildlife biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The state has an overpopulation of foxes because coyotes, their natural predator, are far less abundant in the area, Rohm said.
Anyone who is bitten by a fox or any other wild animal should immediately seek medical care and contact the Arlington Animal Welfare League at 703-931-9214, officials said.
