Overview
- Two separate fox attacks occurred in the same Worcester neighborhood less than 24 hours apart, with a 6-year-old girl bitten on Wednesday and a 45-year-old woman bitten on Thursday.
- The child was treated at a hospital where she received stitches and rabies post-exposure vaccine, and the woman was also taken to a hospital and given a rabies shot and is expected to be okay.
- Worcester police located a fox Thursday morning, euthanized it, and submitted the carcass to the state lab for rabies testing with results expected within several days.
- These incidents follow a related fox attack in April that was caught on surveillance video, a pattern that has left neighbors worried about safety and routine outdoor activity.
- Public-health and animal-control actions include testing the animal to confirm rabies, advising residents to keep children and pets inside, and continuing local response while officials await lab results.