Rabies awareness month
June has been declared Rabies Awareness Month in New York State. The focus of the occasion is on education, particularly with respect to bats. Since 1990, 38 of 41 human rabies cases in the US involved bats. Approximately one-third of bats tested in New York are positive for rabies. In 2007, 559 animals were confirmed as infected with rabies in New York, and more than 3000 people were treated for rabies exposure. Further, more than 1400 New Yorkers undergo treatment each year following exposure to bats that were not caught and tested. State health personnel are emphasizing the need to catch and test bats if people have had contact with them, or when a bat has been present in a house with a sleeping person. They have produced a video on how to safely catch a bat in the house.
Important points to remember about rabies and bats are:
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Never touch a bat.- Consider every bat to have rabies until proven otherwise.
- If you have slept in a house overnight with a bat, you are considered exposed. Unless the bat is caught and tested (and shown to be negative) you should undergo post-exposure treatment.
- If you or your pet may have been in contact with a bat, try to catch it (safely) so that it can be tested for rabies.
- Vaccinate your pets against rabies, even if they never leave the house.
Photo: Little brown bat (M.B. Fenton)
Rabies from a bat: tragic and preventable
A recent issue of CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report described a case of rabies in a person from Minnesota. This person died of rabies in 2007. Approximately one month before he became ill, he held a bat in his hands and felt a ‘pin-prick’. He didn’t see a wound or blood and assumed that he had not been bitten. Since neither he nor his family knew that this type of contact was actually considered rabies exposure, he did not seek medical attention. He died approximately 3 weeks after he developed rabies. Post-exposure rabies treatment would have almost certainly prevented his death. 
- Never handle a bat
- Assume all bats are rabid until proven otherwise
- Any contact with a bat is considered to be rabies exposure unless the bat has been tested and shown to be negative. All bat exposures should be reported to the appropriate public health authorities.
- Despite all the old stories, rabies exposure treatment is not horrible…it’s just a series of shots in the arm.
- Vaccinate your pets. You never know when they’ll encounter a bat…inside or out.
More information on rabies is available in our Resources area.
Why should I vaccinate Fluffy, he's an indoor cat? (aka Why I'm glad I vaccinated Finnegan, my indoor cat)
Picture this. I’m driving home from the airport and get a call from my wife who’s locked in the bedroom with our kids because a bat is flying around the house. It’s not necessarily a big deal, except for the fact I thought I might have seen a bat in the house a couple days earlier, and a bat in a house with access to sleeping people = rabies exposure! I’ll save you the long but somewhat funny saga, and just say I eventually caught the bat. Our sigh of relief was short-lived, however, because it came back rabies positive. That meant we all needed rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (2 shots for Heather and I who have been vaccinated, but 6 shots for each of the kids). We also have a dog and cat, and they had to be considered exposed as well (the cat almost caught the bat). The cat, Finnegan, is an indoor cat but
was vaccinated. The repercussions on the animals were much less than on us. However, if they had not been vaccinated, we would have had a problem.
Protocols for rabies exposure in non-vaccinated animals vary between jurisdictions, but long quarantines are the norm, and euthanasia often is chosen.
The take home message is, even with indoor-only animals….if you care about yourself, your family and your pets, vaccinate your pets against rabies. In most places it’s the law. It’s also good sense.
