[The occurrence and distribution of rabies in Rheinland-Pfalz].

By means of a descriptive study the progress of silvatic rabies in Rheinland-Pfalz is reported, starting from its first occurrence in 1955. During the period of 30 years a total of 35,090 animals of 48 different species has been examined on rabies, yielding 26,6% infected animals. The annual fractions of positive results fluctuated around this mean value with small deviations. The percentage for wild animals (35.9%) exceeded that of domestic animals (14.8%) significantly. The number of the annual rabid foxes showed no dependence on the hunting indicator of population density (HIPD) but correlated well with the dimension of the rabies-infected area.