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Aerial view of Sea Point and the Bantry Bay coastline in Cape Town, South Africa.
CNN
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Dead seals are washing up on beaches in the South African port city of Cape Town, a coast guard official told CNN on Friday, amid an outbreak of rabies among the marine animals.
“We believe this is the first time that rabies has spread through a marine mammal population and it is a concern,” said Cape Town Coastal Manager Gregg Oelofse.
Rabies is rare in seals. The only known case of the viral disease in a seal was recorded in 1980 on the Spitsbergen Islands in Norway.
Cape Town has dozens of beaches and over 300 kilometres of coastline. It is home to thousands of Cape fur seals, a species of seal native to southern Africa.
The city has so far recorded “11 positive cases of rabies in seals,” with the last positive case discovered 10 days ago in a seal that was tested, Oelofse said. However, he urged calm, saying it was normal to find carcasses of Cape fur seals along the coastline. While “a lot” of dead seals have washed ashore this week, many of them died naturally, he said.
He added that laboratory tests are still being conducted to determine how the seals became infected with the disease.
“We don’t know yet where it started. They are doing genetic sequencing of the rabies virus that they found. We will know when they are done with that,” he said.
The Western Cape Provincial Health Department last month warned residents about the risk of rabies, warning of “the possibility of rabies cases along the entire coastline where seals are present.”
Authorities said in late June they had confirmed seven cases of the disease in seals from seven beaches in Cape Town and elsewhere in the Western Cape, and urged residents to avoid contact with the animals. The first case was discovered in October 2023, they noted.
“There is no reason to panic,” Cape Town authorities said at the time, adding that “while rabies is new among Cape fur seals, it is endemic among many wildlife populations in South Africa.”
The area has seen a significant number of seal deaths in recent years. In November 2021, Western Cape provincial officials said they had buried almost 200 dead seals in a single day after their carcasses washed ashore due to suspected malnutrition.
Rabies is a contagious viral disease that affects the brain and central nervous system and is almost always fatal once symptoms appear.
According to the World Health Organization, dogs are the primary source of rabies transmission to humans. The virus is transmitted to humans through animal bites or scratches, and it can take three to 12 weeks for symptoms to appear.
Oelofse said there has been no evidence of seal-to-human transmission of rabies in Cape Town and city authorities are doing everything they can to prevent this.
“There are many people who come into contact with seals on a daily basis, such as surfers, kayakers, divers and others. So one of the things we want to avoid is the possibility of transmission of rabies to a person and so far that has not happened.”