Overview

• The patient was admitted on September 18 with hydrophobia and convulsions and died on September 25, with the diagnosis confirmed by the national reference center at the Institut Pasteur.
• An infectiologist reports the man had traveled to the Maghreb and says a dog bite is the leading hypothesis, with laboratory analyses indicating a canine-type virus consistent with North African lineages.
• An epidemiological investigation is ongoing to pinpoint the place and timing of exposure, taking into account an incubation typically of 30–45 days that can be much longer.
• Hospital teams who cared for the patient were vaccinated as a precaution, ARS and HAS reviewed procedures onsite, and authorities note no quarantine was required and no human-to-human transmission is expected.
• Rabies is effectively absent from France’s terrestrial animals and human cases are rare and usually imported; this marks the second fatal case reported in 2025, as the WHO counts about 59,000 deaths worldwide each year.