How dreadful and what a tragedy for the family. From link within the link. Sometimes bat bites are extremely tiny and we can't see where they might have bitten and licked. Easy to say if you woke...
How dreadful and what a tragedy for the family.
If anyone in Ontario has direct physical contact with a bat, even if there is no visible bite or scratch, or if they have been bitten or exposed to saliva or infectious tissues from another animal species, they should seek immediate medical attention," Moore said
From link within the link. Sometimes bat bites are extremely tiny and we can't see where they might have bitten and licked. Easy to say if you woke up with a bat in the room or if you touched one, just go get the nearly 100% effective treatment afterwards.....
This poor family, they couldn't have known, they checked their child all over for bite marks and probably didn't want to scare the child or administrator a bunch of shots for nearly no reason....26 cases in the last 100 years is so few it would be crazy to blame them.
Several years ago, my dad was out back grilling, when he felt something on his foot. He looked down, saw a tiny bit of blood, looked underneath the grill, and saw a bat staring back at him. My...
Several years ago, my dad was out back grilling, when he felt something on his foot. He looked down, saw a tiny bit of blood, looked underneath the grill, and saw a bat staring back at him. My mom, a nurse, right away told him he had to get rabies shots, even though my was like "Eh, I'm sure it's fine." But my mom wasn't taking No for an answer. They called animal control to take the bat, as well.
The doctors probably reported it to the county (probably required), and the county must have decided to use my dad for a PSA. Because over the next few days, various local news station vans pulled up to their house to interview my dad. He got his 15min of fame because a bat nibbled on his big toe.
I don't know if the bat that bit by my dad actually rabies or not, but regardless, as in this unfortunate story, it's better to be safe than sorry. The little bit I've read about rabies is terrifying. Especially the hydrophobia part. I've seen videos of it.
I feel terrible for this family. You think your kid is OK, only to find out that they weren't. As Hobofarmer mentioned, it's basically a death sentence. Only a handful of known survival cases, but even then, it's not like these survivors came back 100%.
I'm surprised they didn't tell your dad nor publicly anounce the result of if the rabies was positive. Bat education is lacking overall... Most people don't know how important they are to our...
I'm surprised they didn't tell your dad nor publicly anounce the result of if the rabies was positive.
Bat education is lacking overall... Most people don't know how important they are to our environment, how fragile and threatened they are, and also basic things like how their bites aren't always two obvious Halloween vampire fang holes....
Check out this picture of bite (no blood) (source)
They might have told him, but I don't remember what the results were. All I remember was the phrasing used: "Animal Control destroyed the bat." 💀 And that photo is scary. There's nothing obvious...
They might have told him, but I don't remember what the results were. All I remember was the phrasing used: "Animal Control destroyed the bat." 💀
And that photo is scary. There's nothing obvious there! I did see on the Wikipedia page for rabies that waking up with a bat in one's room is an indication for rabies shots:
Awakening to find a bat in the room, or finding a bat in the room of a previously unattended child or mentally disabled or intoxicated person, is an indication for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). The recommendation for the precautionary use of PEP in bat encounters where no contact is recognized has been questioned in the medical literature, based on a cost–benefit analysis.[96] However, a 2002 study has supported the protocol of precautionary administration of PEP where a child or mentally compromised individual has been alone with a bat, especially in sleep areas, where a bite or exposure may occur with the victim being unaware.[97]
I kinda hate the whole cost-benefit analysis thing. Like I get it, medical resources are finite and the shots are not cheap. But I'd rather get PEP and pay for it than get rabies and die a horrible death.
Aww, RIP, tiny fly mouse :( he just wanted to kiss the chef And it seems that modern PEP is only four shots. Compared to Decades ago in Hong Kong my mom got surprised bitten by a Pomeranian whose...
Aww, RIP, tiny fly mouse :( he just wanted to kiss the chef
And it seems that modern PEP is only four shots.
Rabies PEP consists of wound washing, a dose of human rabies immune globulin (HRIG) and rabies vaccine given at the time of your first medical visit, and a dose of vaccine given again on days 3, 7, and 14 after the first dose. Pregnancy is not a contraindication for rabies PEP, and exposure to rabies or a rabies diagnosis in the mother does not require pregnancy termination. (CDC)
Compared to
The basic "Pasteur Treatment," based on brain tissue vaccine with the addition of formaldehyde, is still used in many countries of the world where rabies is prevalent. This treatment still involves immunizations given daily for 14-21 days, and it still carries the same risk of neurologic sequelae as in Pasteur's day. (CDC)
Decades ago in Hong Kong my mom got surprised bitten by a Pomeranian whose owner swears it's friendly and harmless etc. This was the protocol at the time: several shots a day for 21 days. So glad its just four now. If I didn't have this information, the thought of having to take my kid to 21 days of multiple shots might weight in on my decision to going for it or not.
Yeah, but if you are living paycheck to paycheck and that money will ruin you and it's a low chance, would you blame some one for deciding to take the risk? 100 percent chance they get financially...
Yeah, but if you are living paycheck to paycheck and that money will ruin you and it's a low chance, would you blame some one for deciding to take the risk? 100 percent chance they get financially ruined and can't pay their rent/food vs. off chance they die.
The family lives in Canada. The PEP would have been covered by OHIP (provincial health). But time off work, parking, and potential mental distress for the child was probably a big factor. One of...
The family lives in Canada. The PEP would have been covered by OHIP (provincial health). But time off work, parking, and potential mental distress for the child was probably a big factor.
One of the CDC links i skimmed mentioned it's $1000 USD or €100. That's quite the difference.
Yeah, our system (US) sucks ass. As I just wrote to some one else the biggest tragedy in the US at least is that some one has to make the decision between if they can afford rent and food over if...
Yeah, our system (US) sucks ass. As I just wrote to some one else the biggest tragedy in the US at least is that some one has to make the decision between if they can afford rent and food over if they risk a 100 percent fatal but preventable if caught before you know if you have it disease.
Still, from the canadian's family I can understand why they might have made that decision. They probably didn't realize how much a risk it really is. Maybe they didn't realize bat bites can be undetected and as some one pointed out a bat that is near you is more likely to be rabid cause non rabid bats don't like being near people so the risk is higher for a bat that is being around people. Hell I admit until I was on reddit I had no idea that you might not know you were bit by a bat so being in a room with one was all you needed to worry about the risk. So they were just thinking, "oh, he wasn't bit, it's fine, why stress/freak the kid out over that." It's sad though.
Agreed, I wouldn't know how to live with the risk of health care vs bankruptcy. I remember there was a haunting post on the baby forums where parents asked how high of a fever is too high, how...
Agreed, I wouldn't know how to live with the risk of health care vs bankruptcy. I remember there was a haunting post on the baby forums where parents asked how high of a fever is too high, how much blood is too much and how much sleepiness is too much sleepiness....just weighting danger vs can they afford another day off and another pediatrician visit.
As a Canadian new parent on the forums worried about my new born just breathing louder, American parents must just collectively go a bit crazy.
I wonder in the US how it works. Does insurance cover rabies shots? I know insurance entirely covers some vaccines. But those are the ones everyone gets.
I wonder in the US how it works. Does insurance cover rabies shots? I know insurance entirely covers some vaccines. But those are the ones everyone gets.
I had to wrestle a Chihuahua off of my apartment complex's mailbox. He slipped out of my hand a bit and bit me and animal control held him for 10 days to see if he was rabid. That was a pretty...
I had to wrestle a Chihuahua off of my apartment complex's mailbox. He slipped out of my hand a bit and bit me and animal control held him for 10 days to see if he was rabid. That was a pretty intense week and a half waiting to call in and see if I needed my shots (their advice, you have a month to get it done).
How much time you have depends on where you are bitten. A bite on a hand or foot means at least a month for the virus to propagate up the arm or leg nerves to the spine and then the brain. A...
How much time you have depends on where you are bitten. A bite on a hand or foot means at least a month for the virus to propagate up the arm or leg nerves to the spine and then the brain. A shoulder or neck bite would give significantly less time to figure things out.
If it was out during the day, that's a potential sign of rabies. Bats don't usually go wandering in daylight unless their neurological functions are off.
If it was out during the day, that's a potential sign of rabies. Bats don't usually go wandering in daylight unless their neurological functions are off.
And rabies is such a terrifying, horrific disease. Once symptoms present, it's too late and there's a nearly 100% mortality rate. There's one treatment - the Milwaukee protocol - that can...
And rabies is such a terrifying, horrific disease. Once symptoms present, it's too late and there's a nearly 100% mortality rate. There's one treatment - the Milwaukee protocol - that can potentially help, but it's a case of the cure being worse than the disease. It also has only a handful of survivors, though that's better than none.
What a tragedy for the family, and a lesson to us all.
I think the most effective approach is still the epidemiological one: try to vaccinate wild animals and minimize the spread of the disease in the first place. The USDA and various state...
I think the most effective approach is still the epidemiological one: try to vaccinate wild animals and minimize the spread of the disease in the first place.
The USDA and various state organizations have programs where they put baits in the wild (sometimes air dropped) that are loaded with an oral rabies vaccine, which raccoons, bats, etc. eat. Viruses only survive in the long term if they can spread to new, viable hosts.
Similar approaches are being used to combat HIV and HPV now. There has been a push to enable greater access to PrEP and inform higher risk demographics about it (which is why ads are fairly frequent now), because we have a greater chance of curtailing the spread of HIV and maybe eliminating it that way than we do of finding a cure for it. (Though treatments to manage it have greatly improved.) HPV vaccination being promoted has also lead to a decrease in the prevalence of certain cancers.
In america at least add in the pressure that the vaccines is thousands of dollars on top of the not wanting to scare the child for nearly no reason. It's a tough choice. Yes, Rabies is 100 percent...
In america at least add in the pressure that the vaccines is thousands of dollars on top of the not wanting to scare the child for nearly no reason.
It's a tough choice. Yes, Rabies is 100 percent fatal and a horrible way to die, but these days the odds are so few and there are many reasons one would want to not need a rabies shot it is understandable even if it is not the right choice.
Yeah the odds increase but still... I am bound to wonder how dramatic that increase is. I'm not saying one shouldn't get a rabies vaccine if they find a bat in their room, obviously that means...
Yeah the odds increase but still... I am bound to wonder how dramatic that increase is. I'm not saying one shouldn't get a rabies vaccine if they find a bat in their room, obviously that means there is definitely a non zero chance (trying to find if I could find any statistics on likelyhood I found another story where a woman shood a bat off her neck but didn't think she got bitten and didn't think anything of it until months later when she got rabies). And to be fair, we only hear of the cases where it turned out bad. How many people find bats in their room, do nothing but shoo it out, and never have any consequences? They certainly aren't making the news.
But, I can say it's understandable why some people choose to take the risk depending on their situation. And some just don't even know that they might not be able to see a bat bite. Hell.. I worked at a vet and had to tell some one what rabies was and why she should be concerned her unvaccinated dog got bitten by a wild animal. And that was a classic case of worry about rabies (they kind that makes it into classical fictional stories even like "Old Yeller" or "Their eyes were watching God" or "To Kill a Mockingbird").
Bats account for roughly 1/3 of rabies cases in the US. Estimates of how many bats carry rabies is around 1%, from what I was able to see in a quick search. But animals with rabies act differently...
I am bound to wonder how dramatic that increase is.
Bats account for roughly 1/3 of rabies cases in the US. Estimates of how many bats carry rabies is around 1%, from what I was able to see in a quick search. But animals with rabies act differently than animals without. They are more likely to be aggressive and less likely to avoid humans.
Every individual has to weigh the risks, but with bats and rabies, the risk of being wrong is fatal.
Oh, I"m not arguing the consequences aren't fatal. I'm just saying viewing it from the eyes of some one who can't afford the vaccine and the weighing of what is the risk it of it actually...
Oh, I"m not arguing the consequences aren't fatal. I'm just saying viewing it from the eyes of some one who can't afford the vaccine and the weighing of what is the risk it of it actually happening vs. the 100 percent risk of the consequences of spending a lot of money they don't have it's understandable even if we don't feel it is the right decision why some one would go that way.
What is tragic really is more the fact that people (in the US anyways) have to be put in a decision like that in the first place (that doing the right thing will cost them badly in its own way).
About 0.5% of bats carry rabies in BC but on average, 8% of bats sent for rabies testing are positive. That is because bats that come in contact with humans or domestic animals are more likely to carry rabies.
That was us. We moved into a new (to us) house and slept on the floor the first night, then we perceived a fluttering, turn on the lights and there's a bat circling the ceiling. My husband put on...
How many people find bats in their room, do nothing but shoo it out, and never have any consequences?
That was us. We moved into a new (to us) house and slept on the floor the first night, then we perceived a fluttering, turn on the lights and there's a bat circling the ceiling. My husband put on oven mitts and shoo'd it out, but in hindsight that was risky and stupid. We should have used a broom or just opened door with light outside. We decided not to do anything because (1) we were tired from moving and (2) we were just falling asleep so bite likelihood was low. if we had woken up with it then yeah we should have gone in for PEP.
The Milwaukee protocol is the only medically known potential cure. It's a medically induced hypothermia/coma, in an effort to kill the virus through metabolic/environmental stress. It is...
The Milwaukee protocol is the only medically known potential cure. It's a medically induced hypothermia/coma, in an effort to kill the virus through metabolic/environmental stress. It is frighteningly ineffective, but also the only method that has had any success at all.
Actually last I read they think that it really didn't do anything and might be due more to type of rabies the person had (maybe a slight bit more survivable)? It's only ever worked once, maybe...
Actually last I read they think that it really didn't do anything and might be due more to type of rabies the person had (maybe a slight bit more survivable)? It's only ever worked once, maybe twice I think. So I think now they think that was a fluke.
How dreadful and what a tragedy for the family.
From link within the link. Sometimes bat bites are extremely tiny and we can't see where they might have bitten and licked. Easy to say if you woke up with a bat in the room or if you touched one, just go get the nearly 100% effective treatment afterwards.....
This poor family, they couldn't have known, they checked their child all over for bite marks and probably didn't want to scare the child or administrator a bunch of shots for nearly no reason....26 cases in the last 100 years is so few it would be crazy to blame them.
Several years ago, my dad was out back grilling, when he felt something on his foot. He looked down, saw a tiny bit of blood, looked underneath the grill, and saw a bat staring back at him. My mom, a nurse, right away told him he had to get rabies shots, even though my was like "Eh, I'm sure it's fine." But my mom wasn't taking No for an answer. They called animal control to take the bat, as well.
The doctors probably reported it to the county (probably required), and the county must have decided to use my dad for a PSA. Because over the next few days, various local news station vans pulled up to their house to interview my dad. He got his 15min of fame because a bat nibbled on his big toe.
I don't know if the bat that bit by my dad actually rabies or not, but regardless, as in this unfortunate story, it's better to be safe than sorry. The little bit I've read about rabies is terrifying. Especially the hydrophobia part. I've seen videos of it.
I feel terrible for this family. You think your kid is OK, only to find out that they weren't. As Hobofarmer mentioned, it's basically a death sentence. Only a handful of known survival cases, but even then, it's not like these survivors came back 100%.
I'm surprised they didn't tell your dad nor publicly anounce the result of if the rabies was positive.
Bat education is lacking overall... Most people don't know how important they are to our environment, how fragile and threatened they are, and also basic things like how their bites aren't always two obvious Halloween vampire fang holes....
Check out this picture of bite (no blood) (source)
https://nwco.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/image035-1.png
They might have told him, but I don't remember what the results were. All I remember was the phrasing used: "Animal Control destroyed the bat." 💀
And that photo is scary. There's nothing obvious there! I did see on the Wikipedia page for rabies that waking up with a bat in one's room is an indication for rabies shots:
I kinda hate the whole cost-benefit analysis thing. Like I get it, medical resources are finite and the shots are not cheap. But I'd rather get PEP and pay for it than get rabies and die a horrible death.
Aww, RIP, tiny fly mouse :( he just wanted to kiss the chef
And it seems that modern PEP is only four shots.
Compared to
Decades ago in Hong Kong my mom got surprised bitten by a Pomeranian whose owner swears it's friendly and harmless etc. This was the protocol at the time: several shots a day for 21 days. So glad its just four now. If I didn't have this information, the thought of having to take my kid to 21 days of multiple shots might weight in on my decision to going for it or not.
Yeah, but if you are living paycheck to paycheck and that money will ruin you and it's a low chance, would you blame some one for deciding to take the risk? 100 percent chance they get financially ruined and can't pay their rent/food vs. off chance they die.
The family lives in Canada. The PEP would have been covered by OHIP (provincial health). But time off work, parking, and potential mental distress for the child was probably a big factor.
One of the CDC links i skimmed mentioned it's $1000 USD or €100. That's quite the difference.
Yeah, our system (US) sucks ass. As I just wrote to some one else the biggest tragedy in the US at least is that some one has to make the decision between if they can afford rent and food over if they risk a 100 percent fatal but preventable if caught before you know if you have it disease.
Still, from the canadian's family I can understand why they might have made that decision. They probably didn't realize how much a risk it really is. Maybe they didn't realize bat bites can be undetected and as some one pointed out a bat that is near you is more likely to be rabid cause non rabid bats don't like being near people so the risk is higher for a bat that is being around people. Hell I admit until I was on reddit I had no idea that you might not know you were bit by a bat so being in a room with one was all you needed to worry about the risk. So they were just thinking, "oh, he wasn't bit, it's fine, why stress/freak the kid out over that." It's sad though.
Agreed, I wouldn't know how to live with the risk of health care vs bankruptcy. I remember there was a haunting post on the baby forums where parents asked how high of a fever is too high, how much blood is too much and how much sleepiness is too much sleepiness....just weighting danger vs can they afford another day off and another pediatrician visit.
As a Canadian new parent on the forums worried about my new born just breathing louder, American parents must just collectively go a bit crazy.
I wonder in the US how it works. Does insurance cover rabies shots? I know insurance entirely covers some vaccines. But those are the ones everyone gets.
I had to wrestle a Chihuahua off of my apartment complex's mailbox. He slipped out of my hand a bit and bit me and animal control held him for 10 days to see if he was rabid. That was a pretty intense week and a half waiting to call in and see if I needed my shots (their advice, you have a month to get it done).
How much time you have depends on where you are bitten. A bite on a hand or foot means at least a month for the virus to propagate up the arm or leg nerves to the spine and then the brain. A shoulder or neck bite would give significantly less time to figure things out.
If it was out during the day, that's a potential sign of rabies. Bats don't usually go wandering in daylight unless their neurological functions are off.
And rabies is such a terrifying, horrific disease. Once symptoms present, it's too late and there's a nearly 100% mortality rate. There's one treatment - the Milwaukee protocol - that can potentially help, but it's a case of the cure being worse than the disease. It also has only a handful of survivors, though that's better than none.
What a tragedy for the family, and a lesson to us all.
I think the most effective approach is still the epidemiological one: try to vaccinate wild animals and minimize the spread of the disease in the first place.
The USDA and various state organizations have programs where they put baits in the wild (sometimes air dropped) that are loaded with an oral rabies vaccine, which raccoons, bats, etc. eat. Viruses only survive in the long term if they can spread to new, viable hosts.
Similar approaches are being used to combat HIV and HPV now. There has been a push to enable greater access to PrEP and inform higher risk demographics about it (which is why ads are fairly frequent now), because we have a greater chance of curtailing the spread of HIV and maybe eliminating it that way than we do of finding a cure for it. (Though treatments to manage it have greatly improved.) HPV vaccination being promoted has also lead to a decrease in the prevalence of certain cancers.
In america at least add in the pressure that the vaccines is thousands of dollars on top of the not wanting to scare the child for nearly no reason.
It's a tough choice. Yes, Rabies is 100 percent fatal and a horrible way to die, but these days the odds are so few and there are many reasons one would want to not need a rabies shot it is understandable even if it is not the right choice.
If you wake up with a bat in your room I would imagine the odds dramatically increase.
Yeah the odds increase but still... I am bound to wonder how dramatic that increase is. I'm not saying one shouldn't get a rabies vaccine if they find a bat in their room, obviously that means there is definitely a non zero chance (trying to find if I could find any statistics on likelyhood I found another story where a woman shood a bat off her neck but didn't think she got bitten and didn't think anything of it until months later when she got rabies). And to be fair, we only hear of the cases where it turned out bad. How many people find bats in their room, do nothing but shoo it out, and never have any consequences? They certainly aren't making the news.
But, I can say it's understandable why some people choose to take the risk depending on their situation. And some just don't even know that they might not be able to see a bat bite. Hell.. I worked at a vet and had to tell some one what rabies was and why she should be concerned her unvaccinated dog got bitten by a wild animal. And that was a classic case of worry about rabies (they kind that makes it into classical fictional stories even like "Old Yeller" or "Their eyes were watching God" or "To Kill a Mockingbird").
Bats account for roughly 1/3 of rabies cases in the US. Estimates of how many bats carry rabies is around 1%, from what I was able to see in a quick search. But animals with rabies act differently than animals without. They are more likely to be aggressive and less likely to avoid humans.
Every individual has to weigh the risks, but with bats and rabies, the risk of being wrong is fatal.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p0106-human-rabies.html
Oh, I"m not arguing the consequences aren't fatal. I'm just saying viewing it from the eyes of some one who can't afford the vaccine and the weighing of what is the risk it of it actually happening vs. the 100 percent risk of the consequences of spending a lot of money they don't have it's understandable even if we don't feel it is the right decision why some one would go that way.
What is tragic really is more the fact that people (in the US anyways) have to be put in a decision like that in the first place (that doing the right thing will cost them badly in its own way).
Here is what I found for where I live:
That was us. We moved into a new (to us) house and slept on the floor the first night, then we perceived a fluttering, turn on the lights and there's a bat circling the ceiling. My husband put on oven mitts and shoo'd it out, but in hindsight that was risky and stupid. We should have used a broom or just opened door with light outside. We decided not to do anything because (1) we were tired from moving and (2) we were just falling asleep so bite likelihood was low. if we had woken up with it then yeah we should have gone in for PEP.
What do they do for people who are presenting with symptoms of rabies these days? Medically induced coma towards the end?
The government of Canada only has one recommendation.
The Milwaukee protocol is the only medically known potential cure. It's a medically induced hypothermia/coma, in an effort to kill the virus through metabolic/environmental stress. It is frighteningly ineffective, but also the only method that has had any success at all.
Actually last I read they think that it really didn't do anything and might be due more to type of rabies the person had (maybe a slight bit more survivable)? It's only ever worked once, maybe twice I think. So I think now they think that was a fluke.