nmp wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
nmp wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
nmp wrote:
Terry wrote:
I hope your shots are up to date.
I hardly see a reason for that.
The US Department for Health and Social Services operates the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC), which has a very interesting article on
bats and rabies:
http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/bats.html
Here are two short quotes:
"Most of the recent human rabies cases in the United States have
been caused by rabies virus from bats."
"... any bat that is active by day, is found in a place where bats
are not usually seen (for example, in a room in your home or on the
lawn), or is unable to fly, is far more likely than others to be
rabid."
OK, far more likely (I would not argue your CDC). But how much more
likely exactly? It does not say.
I do admit, after a bit of reading (wikipedia and such), that perhaps
bats in the Americas (and a few other regions) are indeed "more likely"
to have (and transmit) rabies. Compared to other regions, that is.
You've totally missed the point. There is nothing there comparing
regions.
Not in the article you quoted but here, for example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies#Rabies_and_bats
It just says, without equivocation, that bats are a *very*
*common* vector for human rabies. In the US it happens to be the most
common (for a reason, as explained below).
If you do even more research what you'll find is that bats are one of
the several types of animals in which rabies is very commonly endemic.
That means in any given population it is always present (and is not
necessarily always fatal for every animal which has it).
This may all be true but there is still no answer: how many (in a
hundred) animals *will* have the virus, in other words, how much risk
does one little bat really pose to you if you know nothing about it?
It can be a very common infection for bats, and still be quite rare.
Which is made insignificant by the simple fact that,
rare or not, if you catch it... you die. *EVERY TIME*.
Of course it is your pets that should have up to date rabies shots...
Rabies kills people, too.
Pre-exposure human rabies vaccination is not routine. On the other
hand, for people like a veterinarian or a researcher working with bats,
they would in fact get a pre-exposure vaccination.
I don't remember vaccination but it was like 20 years ago, in Belgium. I
wasn't the researcher, but a sort of batcatcher. With a big scoop net 
Twenty years ago they may not have had a suitable
vaccination.
Regardless of that, around the world 99% of human rabies cases are the
result of contact with rabid dogs. That is not true in the US because a
dogs commonly receive a rabies vaccine...
The CDC article seems very well balanced. At least it says that not all
I cited that particular article for good reason.
bats have rabies and the method they describe to catch bats in your
house is quite humane.
They recommend that bats caught in your home be tested for rabies. The
bat does not survive that test...
They recommend this if you think you may have been bitten. Otherwise, it
How sure can you be though? One story I read was of a
young girl that woke up to find a bat in her bedroom,
and while she didn't think she had been bitten, she was
examined throughly anyway. They found no indication
that she had been bitten.
She died of rabies.
(The bat had been killed and tossed outside. They
actually found the carcass, and it tested positive.)
Taking risks with rabies is like playing Russian
Roulette.
says: "If you see a bat in your home and you are sure no human or pet
exposure has occurred, confine the bat to a room by closing all doors and
windows leading out of the room except those to the outside. The bat will
probably leave soon. If not, it can be caught, as described, and released
outdoors away from people and pets."
Incidentally, my perspective on this is from living in
an area where we have rabies quarantines almost every
spring. The disease is endemic in Arctic foxes, which
like bats start showing up in places they should not be
and acting in ways that are not normal. I don't know
what the percentages are with bats, but with foxes they
are virtually *all* rabid if they exhibit those
characteristics.
--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)