Editing Openai/6935ad62-1d20-8013-82d6-55bc0e7e0896 (section)

=== Assistant: Short answer: we don’t have an exact published total for “since 1978,” but we can bracket it pretty tightly. ===
Short answer: we don’t have an exact published total for “since 1978,” but we can bracket it pretty tightly.

What we do know:
* CDC analysis: 125 human rabies cases in the U.S. from 1960–2018. CDC<ref>{{cite web|title=CDC|url=https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6823e1.htm|publisher=cdc.gov|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref>
* Classic review: 38 cases from 1960–1979. PubMed<ref>{{cite web|title=PubMed|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6712036/|publisher=pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref>
* So 1980–2018 = 125 − 38 ≈ 87 cases.
* Recent CDC / surveillance data: - 2019: 0 - 2020: 0 - 2021: 5 deaths Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref> - 2022: 0 Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref> - 2023: 0 (no human cases in North America) PubMed<ref>{{cite web|title=PubMed|url=https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40683310/|publisher=pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref> - 2024: 3 deaths (California, Minnesota, Kentucky) Wikipedia<ref>{{cite web|title=Wikipedia|url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_rabies|publisher=en.wikipedia.org|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref> - 2025 so far: 1 transplant-related death People.com<ref>{{cite web|title=People.com|url=https://people.com/michigan-patient-dies-rabies-contracting-disease-transplanted-organ-11704146|publisher=people.com|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref>

That gives 9 cases from 2019–2025, so 1980–2025 ≈ 87 + 9 = 96 cases.

For 1978–79, we know of at least 4 bat-variant human cases (2 in 1978, 2 in 1979) from CDC/Texas tables, but there were likely a few additional non-bat cases; the detailed year-by-year breakdown for those two years isn’t accessible in a single open table. Texas Health Services<ref>{{cite web|title=Texas Health Services|url=https://www.dshs.texas.gov/sites/default/files/IDCU/disease/rabies/information/bats/bat-rabies-in-humans-table-051219.pdf|publisher=Texas Health Services|access-date=2025-12-07}}</ref>

Putting it together:
* Best estimate for U.S. human rabies cases from 1978 through early 2025: ≈100 cases total (roughly 96–105, depending on the exact 1978–79 count).

So: order of magnitude is about one hundred human cases in nearly 50 years, with only 0–5 per year and many years with none.