WALDORF — Anyone who lives, walks a dog or lets a cat outdoors near Poplar Hill Road and Breconridge Drive is being asked to think back on any recent run-in with a raccoon. One from that area tested positive for rabies on Tuesday, Nov. 10, the Charles County Department of Health said in a public alert.
People who had contact with a raccoon there, or whose pets did, should call the health department at 301-609-6768.
The alert did not say how the raccoon was found or whether any person or pet is known to have been exposed.
Pet owners who are behind on shots have a free option this weekend. The health department and Charles County Animal Control will hold a drive-through rabies clinic for dogs, cats and ferrets on Sunday, Nov. 15, from 10 a.m. to noon at 10425 Audie Lane in La Plata. Owners who bring a pet’s previous rabies certificate can get a three-year vaccine. Questions about the clinic go to 301-609-3425 or 301-609-6751.
How exposure happens
Rabies spreads through the saliva of an infected animal, usually by a bite or scratch. The health department said the virus can also enter through open cuts or through the eyes, nose or mouth, and that people can be exposed secondhand, by touching saliva left on the fur of a pet that tangled with a rabid animal.
That is why the department’s warning covers pets as much as people. Dogs, cats and ferrets can catch rabies from raccoons, foxes, skunks and bats, and livestock can be infected too. The department urged residents to keep pets’ vaccinations current, to ask a veterinarian about vaccinating livestock, to avoid wildlife and unfamiliar animals, and to teach children to do the same.
Besides the free clinic, the department said vaccines are available from veterinarians and at retailers including Petco, Banfield and Tractor Supply.
Not the county’s first this year
The Waldorf raccoon follows a rabid skunk found in Charlotte Hall in late September, which was the fourth Charles County case of 2026 at the time. About a year ago, a raccoon in La Plata near Oriole Lane also tested positive.
Raccoons are the animal most often found with rabies in Maryland. They accounted for 122 of the 226 animals that tested positive statewide in 2025, The Baltimore Banner reported, citing Maryland Department of Health data. The same data show the statewide total has fallen by more than half since a peak of 515 in 2001, and no human rabies cases were reported in Maryland in the decade ending in 2024.
People are protected by treatment given after an exposure, which is why health officials want to hear quickly from anyone who may have been bitten, scratched or otherwise exposed. About 900 Marylanders receive that preventive treatment each year, according to the Prince George’s County Health Department.
A wild animal that seems sick, unusually tame or aggressive should be left alone and reported to animal control.
