A rabies alert was declared in a Serbian town after several infected cats bit and scratched seven people, including two pre-school children, the national television RTS said Wednesday.

All of the victims were treated with a vaccine against the deadly disease and released from hospital, the report said, without specifying when the incident occurred.

Authorities in Raca Kragujevacka, in central Serbia some 110 kilometres south of Belgrade, raised the alert after the rabies virus was isolated and confirmed in one of the cats.

Carried by saliva of infected mammals and invariably lethal if not urgently treated, rabies kill 50,000 people around the world. The rural central Serbia remains plagued by the disease, though no human fatalities were recently reported.