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(Undated-AP) -- A Northern Virginia man is dead from rabies, the state's first fatal case in nearly five years.

The man died in mid-March, but the diagnosis wasn't confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control until this week.

The Virginia Department of Health won't say exactly where in northern Virginia the man was from, or give the precise date of death. Spokeswoman Lucy Caldwell says health officials are now working with people who'd been in close contact with him.

They're also trying to figure out how he got rabies, which Caldwell says a person can have and not realize.

The last fatal rabies cases in Virginia was in December of 1998, when a prisoner died at the Nottoway Correctional Center. That was the first rabies case Virginia had seen since 1953, and was blamed on a bat.

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Date published: 6/13/2003

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