Martha's Vineyard has recorded its first confirmed rabies case since 2019 after a cat brought a dead, infected bat into a home in Tisbury in July, prompting a 45-day quarantine for two cats and precautionary vaccinations for their owners. The case comes amid a wider rise in US rabies concern, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recording six rabies deaths in the year to August 2025, the highest annual toll in years, against 17 deaths in the entire decade from 2015 to 2024.

Experts say roughly 4,000 animal rabies cases are reported across America annually, with bats the leading source of human infections because their small bites often go unnoticed. Infectious disease physician Dr Tyler B Evans linked the recent increase to urban sprawl pushing people into rural wildlife habitats, expanding wildlife populations feeding on human waste, post-pandemic healthcare gaps, and bat exposure, warning that untreated rabies is fatal in 99.9% of cases. New York City has also seen a cluster of 21 rabid animals this year, including raccoons and a skunk across Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens, while a California teacher's death in 2024 after a classroom bat bite underscored how symptoms can take weeks to appear.