Suffolk to drop rabies vaccine baits across western county next month

Suffolk County will send slow-moving marked vehicles through western neighborhoods next month to drop about 9,500 oral rabies vaccine baits in an effort to hold the disease line at the county’s western edge. The baiting will run June 1 through June 5, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., in areas south of the Long Island Expressway and west of the Sagtikos Parkway.

County health officials said the packets will be placed in sumps, storm drains, woods, shrubs, hedges and other places where raccoons travel. The vaccine is meant to be eaten by raccoons, which then become immunized against rabies. Officials said the packets are not harmful to people or pets, but residents should not touch them and should keep dogs and children away from baiting areas during the program window.

The campaign comes after rabies resurfaced locally in a dead raccoon found in Wyandanch during Christmas week, a case Suffolk County confirmed on January 6 as the first locally acquired terrestrial rabies case in 2026. County officials said it was the 20th terrestrial rabies case since January 28, 2025. Before that run, Suffolk had not reported locally acquired terrestrial rabies since 2009.

Nearly all of the recent cases have involved raccoons, with one feral cat, and all have been found in southwestern Suffolk, including Amityville, Deer Park, Lindenhurst and Wyandanch. That geographic pattern is driving the county’s containment strategy, which aims to build a barrier of vaccinated raccoons and stop the virus from moving farther east.

The June operation follows Suffolk’s larger 2025 baiting campaign, which began September 2 in Babylon, Huntington, Smithtown and Islip and was expected to distribute about 250,000 baits over three to four weeks. County officials said that effort followed enhanced surveillance after rabies reappeared in Nassau County. Suffolk is again working with the USDA Wildlife Services National Rabies Management Program, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, which distributes about 6.5 million oral rabies vaccine baits annually in selected states.

Rabies is almost always fatal once symptoms appear, but it can be prevented with prompt medical care after exposure. County health officials said the June bait drop is a proactive move to protect residents, pets and wildlife while keeping the disease from spreading beyond the western half of Suffolk.