> At first, an emergency clinic prescribed the boy antiviral medication used to treat infections caused by herpes viruses as they presumed he might have Bell's palsy, the temporary paralysis of facial muscles on one side of the face.
> Then he went to hospital on back-to-back visits, first getting a presumed diagnosis of herpes gingivostomatitis, a viral infection of the mouth and gums, then returning the following day after the right side of his face went weak, the journal states.
I know the timeline could not be accurate, but if they mentioned what happened with the bat why wasn’t rabies the very first thing they tested for? Even if the parents visited a clinic right after the fact I fear this would have ended up the same way, unfortunately, especially because rabies symptoms show up after some time
The only way to verify the presence of rabies is to bring in the animal that did the bite. But per the article, they released the responsible bat. Normally what you'd do in this case is the hospital gives you the rabies vaccine anyway just in case, because the alternative is if the animal was rabid, you die.
Bats are the most common carriers of rabies, and also you should watch out for any wild animal that's too comfortable getting close to a human. Especially more shy ones like raccoons and such.
Not necessarily. Which country were you in and when was this?
(I don't much like this Internet confusion where half the time people don't know what country they're reading about. At least this article has "Canadian" as the first word of the title. Here in Britain I think rabies in bats is a recent thing and even today rabies is very rare in bats.)
UK: my wife handled a baby bat a couple of weeks ago that was found in a airbnb/hotel in the Lake District. No bites from it.
This popped up in her newsfeed last night..... she is now at the hospital getting rabies shots (no symptoms luckily). The medical staff are treating it very seriously!
It's a great demonstration of how public health communication fails: the most important part is at the tail of the article, below two advertisements, and it's about as obscure as one could write it:
Any direct human contact with a bat is an indication for rabies postexposure prophylaxi - medical treatment given immediately after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
The article should have also recommended they safely isolate the animal to have it tested for rabies.
> Any direct human contact with a bat is an indication for rabies postexposure prophylaxi - medical treatment given immediately after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
This phrase is unnecessarily complicated, I expect something easier to understand from the BBC. It can't be stressed often enough: if there's even the slightest suspicion that someone has been bitten, scratched etc. by any wild animal or even "just" a feral cat/dog, get them a rabies vaccine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine) immediately. Maybe the term "prophylaxi" (shouldn't it be prophylaxis?) is preferred nowadays because of the unnecessary controversies over vaccines, but I won't mince words here...
Despite being such a "household name", rabies is in fact the single deadliest disease in humans. If untreated, results in pretty much 100% mortality. There's a mere handful of people surviving rabies without treatment in recorded history.
That's worse than Ebola, anthrax, SARS, MERS, and anything else you can think of.
> if there's even the slightest suspicion that someone has been bitten, scratched etc
With Bats, always considered you've been bitten. Especially in situations like "woke up with a bat in the bedroom" - unless you can confirm the type of bat, take this as yes, it's hospital time
As noticed by the article, bat bites can be pretty painless
> Any direct human contact with a bat is an indication for rabies postexposure prophylaxi - medical treatment given immediately after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
Yes, this is the correct take here
This is one of those things that will kill you and it will hurt the whole time you're dying
Though on the good side it does away with antivaxxers pretty quickly
> At first, an emergency clinic prescribed the boy antiviral medication used to treat infections caused by herpes viruses as they presumed he might have Bell's palsy, the temporary paralysis of facial muscles on one side of the face.
> Then he went to hospital on back-to-back visits, first getting a presumed diagnosis of herpes gingivostomatitis, a viral infection of the mouth and gums, then returning the following day after the right side of his face went weak, the journal states.
I know the timeline could not be accurate, but if they mentioned what happened with the bat why wasn’t rabies the very first thing they tested for? Even if the parents visited a clinic right after the fact I fear this would have ended up the same way, unfortunately, especially because rabies symptoms show up after some time
The only way to verify the presence of rabies is to bring in the animal that did the bite. But per the article, they released the responsible bat. Normally what you'd do in this case is the hospital gives you the rabies vaccine anyway just in case, because the alternative is if the animal was rabid, you die.
Bats are the most common carriers of rabies, and also you should watch out for any wild animal that's too comfortable getting close to a human. Especially more shy ones like raccoons and such.
When I was little I remember rescuing a small bat, brought it around in my hands for a good hour. I guess I was very lucky :/
Not necessarily. Which country were you in and when was this?
(I don't much like this Internet confusion where half the time people don't know what country they're reading about. At least this article has "Canadian" as the first word of the title. Here in Britain I think rabies in bats is a recent thing and even today rabies is very rare in bats.)
At the time I was in Italy!
I don't think they told the hospital about the bat. Probably didn't cross their mind of the reason it was happening unfortunately.
If the hospital knew he came in contact with a wild animal they would have put him on the rabies vaccine regardless of any sort of rabies testing.
Sad, but hopefully this tragedy informs someone about rabies in bats.
Bats are the number one carrier of rabies and their tiny bites are really easy to miss. If you touch a wild bat, you need to go to the hospital.
UK: my wife handled a baby bat a couple of weeks ago that was found in a airbnb/hotel in the Lake District. No bites from it. This popped up in her newsfeed last night..... she is now at the hospital getting rabies shots (no symptoms luckily). The medical staff are treating it very seriously!
This is awful, but why is this on hacker news
It's a great demonstration of how public health communication fails: the most important part is at the tail of the article, below two advertisements, and it's about as obscure as one could write it:
Any direct human contact with a bat is an indication for rabies postexposure prophylaxi - medical treatment given immediately after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
The article should have also recommended they safely isolate the animal to have it tested for rabies.
To raise awareness?
Horrific. Poor family.
> Any direct human contact with a bat is an indication for rabies postexposure prophylaxi - medical treatment given immediately after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
This phrase is unnecessarily complicated, I expect something easier to understand from the BBC. It can't be stressed often enough: if there's even the slightest suspicion that someone has been bitten, scratched etc. by any wild animal or even "just" a feral cat/dog, get them a rabies vaccine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies_vaccine) immediately. Maybe the term "prophylaxi" (shouldn't it be prophylaxis?) is preferred nowadays because of the unnecessary controversies over vaccines, but I won't mince words here...
Despite being such a "household name", rabies is in fact the single deadliest disease in humans. If untreated, results in pretty much 100% mortality. There's a mere handful of people surviving rabies without treatment in recorded history.
That's worse than Ebola, anthrax, SARS, MERS, and anything else you can think of.
Yes yes to all this and here's the thing
> if there's even the slightest suspicion that someone has been bitten, scratched etc
With Bats, always considered you've been bitten. Especially in situations like "woke up with a bat in the bedroom" - unless you can confirm the type of bat, take this as yes, it's hospital time
As noticed by the article, bat bites can be pretty painless
> Any direct human contact with a bat is an indication for rabies postexposure prophylaxi - medical treatment given immediately after potential exposure to a rabid animal.
Yes, this is the correct take here
This is one of those things that will kill you and it will hurt the whole time you're dying
Though on the good side it does away with antivaxxers pretty quickly
antivax or anti experimental-covid-vax? There is a difference.
Unfortunately, antivaxxers mostly go unharmed while their children suffer.
> while their children suffer
and (if there are too many of them) the rest of society
[flagged]
Now I will always ask AI what to do. This incident likely preventable with basic query asking chatgpt.
That’s dumb. Call your local authorities.
I woke up to a bat in my house. Local animal control told us to go to the ER immediately and get the rabies cycle started.
Don’t play games.