Albany

A bobcat that attacked a New Scotland husband and wife on Wednesday has tested positive for rabies.

Treatments to prevent the couple from being infected by the rabies virus have already begun, according to Albany County spokeswoman Mary Rozak.

If a rabies infection takes hold, the disease is usually fatal. But rabies deaths are rare in the United States, and usually only occur among people who don't know they were exposed to the virus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The New Scotland couple received fast-acting shots of rabies immune globulin on Wednesday, and will receive three more shots over the next two weeks with the hopes of preventing an infection, Rozak said. Such preventive treatments are nearly 100 percent effective, according to CDC.

The couple were attacked by the 22-pound adult male bobcat outside a neighbor's home Wednesday. The neighbor shot the animal dead.

The couple was taken to St. Peter's Hospital and then returned home that evening. There is no further information on their condition, Rozak said.

The animal's brain was tested for rabies at the state Health Department's Wadsworth Center Griffin Laboratory in Guilderland.

Bobcat attacks on people are extremely rare and usually the result of the animal being sick with rabies or other illnesses, a state Department of Environmental Conservation spokesman told the Times Union on Thursday.