The Cattle Have Gone Mad in Harghita County! And We Don't (Just) Mean the Politicians

The rabies outbreak continues to spread in Harghita County. The county's Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Directorate (DSVSA) has so far confirmed 32 foci in nearly every commune of Upper Ciuc (Felcsík) and in Miercurea Ciuc (Csíkszereda). Eighteen cattle, eight foxes, four sheep, one dog and one cat have fallen ill; according to Radio Târgu Mureș, two more samples were sent to the lab on Tuesday, and two or three animals are showing suspicious symptoms on an Angus farm at the edge of the forest near Ciucsângeorgiu (Csicsó). When asked how things had gotten to this point, the director of the DSVSA, Róbert István, deflected skillfully but falsely: "The problem is that for two years, two years and a bit, there was no vaccination, and this year the money was only found now."

The epidemic broke out at the end of September, when two cattle died on the outskirts of Sântamaria Ciuc (Csíkszenttamás), about five kilometers apart. According to Hargita Népe, the animals grazing near the village first became unusually aggressive, then died. Rabies was confirmed first by the lab in Sfântu Gheorghe and later by the national veterinary institute in Bucharest, and the people who had come into contact with the animals, including the veterinarian, received vaccination and immunoglobulin. A few days later, sick cattle were also found in Armăşeni (Csíkmadaras) and Sândominic (Csíkszentdomokos), while in Mihăileni (Csíkszentmihály) the disease was detected in an unvaccinated dog that had previously had an encounter with a fox. The authorities set up a three-kilometer protection zone and a seven-kilometer surveillance zone around the foci, restricted the movement of dogs and cats, and ordered that only boiled or pasteurized milk could be sold in the infected areas. In Sândominic, a rabid cat first got into a fight with dogs, then bit a woman and an elderly man, and then chased after a cyclist, at which point hunters shot it. By mid-October the infection had also spread to Racu (Csíkrákos) and Dănești (Csíkdánfalva), and in Miercurea Ciuc a dead, rabid fox was found in the yard of a haulage company.

People were also at risk. According to data from Gyöngyi Tar, head of the Harghita County Emergency Hospital and the County Public Health Directorate, 54 people had already been treated between September 29 and October 7, including 11 children; eighteen of them received immunoglobulin in addition to the vaccine, which indicates how serious the risk of infection was. Once rabies symptoms break out, the disease is almost always fatal.

We Beat It Once, But Not This Year

In Romania, rabies had once almost disappeared. Since the disease is spread mainly by foxes, a nationwide vaccination program was launched in 2012: vaccine baits were distributed both by plane and by hand. Four foci were recorded in 2012, nine in 2013, four again in 2014, and none at all between 2015 and 2018. Then the money ran out. Vasile Pop, an employee of the Maramureș County Sanitary Veterinary Directorate, told Graiul Maramureșului in March that vaccination was skipped in 2024 and 2025 because of budget constraints, "and without money, nothing can be done about it." The result was not long in coming: nationwide, 18 foci and 22 cases were confirmed in 2024; by July 2025 there were already 27 foci, and in Iași County alone there were forty by November. Ugar reported in August that seven foci had been found in Bacău County, and that 23 people, including two children and a pregnant woman, had come into contact with the virus. In February, the ANSVSA issued a 180-million-lei framework contract providing for one spring and one autumn fox vaccination campaign per year until the end of 2027, yet the aerial campaign only resumed in early October — by which time, according to the ANSVSA, there were already at least 87 active foci and 102 confirmed cases nationwide. The baits were first scattered in Suceava, Botoșani, Neamț, Bacău and Harghita counties. In Harghita, the DSVSA began vaccinating around the foci, borrowed most of the doses from other counties, and plans to buy another twenty thousand doses from the supplementary budget. Meanwhile, hunting has also been stepped up, as the fox population has grown excessively.

Context: This Wasn't the Foxes' Fault

Vaccinating foxes won't break the budget. Under the nationwide framework contract running until the end of 2027, the vaccination campaign covering the entire country costs roughly 18 million euros, and Harghita now needs twenty thousand doses. Compare that to the cost of the dead and to-be-culled cattle, the farmers' lost income, the treatment of 54 people, the expensive immunoglobulin, the movement restrictions and the milk ban. The two years of missed vaccination were therefore not caused by a lack of money, but by laziness and irresponsibility. They cut costs on something that anyone with even a little knowledge of rabies could have told them: if vaccination is skipped, the disease will sooner or later come back. The trouble with prevention is precisely that as long as it works, it seems unnecessary: as long as there's no rabies, everyone considers the money spent on fox vaccination a waste.

Responsibility doesn't lie with Bucharest alone, but let's remind everyone that Barna Tánczos has also held the post of agriculture minister, and he was already caught up in a minor scandal over foot-and-mouth disease in sheep, when he blamed the EU for delaying vaccine deliveries — until Brussels itself clarified that Mr. Tánczos had in fact sent the request rather late. Ugar already asked at the end of September whether the county leadership had informed the public that foxes were not vaccinated in 2024 and 2025, and who decided that no money would be allocated for this over two years — we still haven't received an answer.

RMDSZ (the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania) has held power in Harghita and Covasna counties for decades, leading both county councils, with the vast majority of mayors also being its people, and the heads of county institutions typically being figures the alliance approves of. What's more, it has been back in government since the end of 2024, meaning it had a seat at the table when decisions were made about what would and wouldn't receive funding. If someone has such a firm grip on the county, they could have spoken up in time about the fact that the fox population had grown out of control and gone unvaccinated. They could have borrowed, advanced, or at least pushed for the vaccine, the way they are now borrowing it from other counties after the fact. The fact that Maramureș and Bacău also failed to vaccinate didn't mean Harghita had to resign itself to the same fate, especially since news from neighboring counties had made clear since summer what was coming. The same goes for warning farmers. Farmers in Upper Ciuc only found out there was rabies in the area once their animals were already dying. The authorities only gave general advice: get your dog and cat vaccinated, and report any animal behaving strangely. No one went out to the villages to warn the farmers whose cattle graze on the same pastures and forest edges as the foxes. RMDSZ likes to present itself as the protector of Szeklerland's farmers and rural areas, but it did nothing about fox vaccination in time either, and now it's the farmers who are paying the price.

Ugar