Letter: Does rabies in suburban foxes pose a threat?

From Jennifer Phillips, Westwood, Massachusetts, US

Clare Wilson reports how dog vaccination could help eradicate rabies (5 August, p 38). She does not mention foxes – which seem to be increasingly filling urban and suburban niches and, alongside bats, are responsible for many of the instances of animal bites followed by rabies treatment where I live in New England.

How similar is the fox rabies virus to the dog version? I was bitten by a fox carrying a rabies virus not 3 metres from my suburban front door, and luckily had access to rapid treatment. Can other infected canids biting dogs spread fox or coyote rabies?

The editor writes:
• Fox rabies can infect dogs, but although, on average, each dog infects 1.2 others with dog rabies, non-canine strains tend to spread to less than one other dog so the infection quickly fizzles out.