Family undergoes rabies treatments

[L Roebuck]

Family undergoes rabies treatments after infected bat was captured in their home
by TIMOTHY MITCHELL - Ravalli Republic

Late last week a bat was discovered to have rabies in Ravalli County, according to the Public Health Department, forcing a young family to go through a series of shots and costly vaccination.

Not often talked about, a recent outbreak of rabies in Flathead County - attributed to bats _ has raised the public's attention level and prompted a search for answers.

Although rabies can be found in many different wild animals, bats hold the infamous title of being the largest carrier of rabies in Montana and across the nation. According to figures released through the Ravalli County Public Health Department, 75 percent of rabies cases are contracted through bats. Raccoons and skunks round out the top three slots of rabies carriers.

Rabies is an infectious viral disease that primarily affects the nervous systems of the human or animal that becomes infected. It's transmitted mainly through bites and contact with saliva in a person's eyes, nose, mouth or open wound.

Rabies cannot be passed through extraneous contact with the infected creature or its feces, according to the Centers For Disease Control.

The rest of the story...
www.ravallinews.com/articles/2005/08/31/news/news03.txt

[Azurerana]

Here we go again. Reporter mis-understands the difference between 'bat strain rabies' and "bat vector rabies" .

To quote in rebuttal:

"Human rabies
There have been at least 36 documented human deaths from rabies infections acquired in the U.S. from
1990 through 2004. Monoclonal antibody analysis and genetic sequencing indicate that one death occurred
from an indigenous skunk strain of rabies, and one death occurred in Virginia in 2003 from the raccoon strain of
the virus. The remaining 34 deaths were associated with bat variants of the rabies virus. In May, 2004 an organ
donor in Arkansas died of bat-associated rabies and four persons who received organs and tissue from this donor
subsequently became infected and died from rabies in May and June. However, in most of the remaining cases
no exposure to bats could be documented, and it remains unclear why a disproportionate number of recent
human deaths from rabies in the U.S. are associated with bat strains of the virus."
--An Update on the Incidence of Rabies in Pennsylvania in 2004, Thomas Wampler, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture,Pennsylvania Veterinary Laboratory
www.padls.org/notes/wampler2004

See also: www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol9no2/02-0083.htm
for possible explanations of this anomalous data.

The 'bat virus' may not have come directly from a little furry animal with wings at all, but via a different animal who themselves had a close encounter with a rabid bat.