How prevalent are rabies cases in Minnesota?

Monday marked World Rabies Day, a chance to raise awareness about how to stop the spread of the highly deadly disease.

Several animals in Minnesota are known to carry it, though some species are much more likely to do so than others

Right in the heart of downtown Minneapolis is where a dead bat was found to have rabies recently. Not some cave or forest, but the urban center.

WCCO discussed how prevalent rabies cases are in Minnesota with Carrie Klumb, a senior epidemiologist in the zoonotic disease unit at the Minnesota Department of Health.

"It actually is really dependent on where you live in the country which animals are more likely to carry rabies," said Klumb.

For Minnesota, the main animal species that carry rabies are skunks and bats. Both have a strain of the virus unique to their species. However, it can be passed to other animals through a bite.

Of the animals submitted for rabies testing at MDH, skunks have the highest positivity rate at 33%, said Klumb. Bats are second overall at about 4%.

"There's a little bit of research out there that has actually tried to look at how many bats in the wild have rabies, and that's thought to be about 1% of bats in the world have rabies," said Klumb. 

There aren't any similar studies for skunks in the wild with rabies, so Klumb said that number is unknown.

One animal often associated with rabies is the raccoon. It has high infection rates along the country's East Coast, but not in Minnesota. MDH tested about 1,547 raccoons for rabies from 2003 to 2024. Only one came back positive.

"The USDA actually has a multimillion-dollar program where they drop baits out of helicopters every year to try to vaccinate raccoons to keep [rabies] from spreading any further west towards us," said Klumb.

Dozens of cattle, dogs and cats also tested positive during that span. Klumb said they were most likely bitten by a rabid skunk.

Are there certain parts of Minnesota where animals are more likely to carry rabies?

For bats, the answer is the seven-county metro area. Klumb said that could be because all testing of animals for rabies in the state happens only at a lab in St. Paul.

"So, it might be easier for people living in the Metro area to bring an animal in to be tested, where people living far away just might not choose to test it in the first place," she said.

As for skunks with rabies, Klumb said they're typically found in central and southwestern Minnesota, which is their main habitat. It's also where most of the livestock cases of rabies occur due to skunk bites.

Location aside, human cases of rabies in Minnesota and across the country are extremely rare. There were only two reported in the U.S. in 2025. Klumb said the average is typically less than 10 per year countrywide.

A big reason for that is the mass vaccination of pets that began in the late 1940s.

"In the rest of the world, many developing countries actually have the strain, or rabies type, that infects dogs. And so about 70,000 people die every year around the world. And most of those are coming from rabid dog bites," Klumb said.

Bat bites are the most likely way humans catch rabies in Minnesota. If you have any exposure to a bat, including just touching one, you're asked to contact MDH or your healthcare provider to get an assessment. The hotline for MDH is 651-201-5414.

An assessment is critical. Once a person starts to show symptoms of rabies, it's often too late to treat the disease. The results are fatal. 

"That's why we take these exposures so seriously," said Klumb. "We really need to make sure that we get people the rabies vaccinations, which is sometimes called rabies post-exposure prophylaxis, before the person shows any symptoms."

To learn more about rabies presence in Minnesota, including how to safely capture a bat, visit the state agency's website.