"They woke up with a bat in their bedroom," a Canadian health official said of a child in Ontario. The parents saw no signs of a bite or scratches so did not take their child to receive the rabies vaccine, Dr. Malcolm Lock said, per the BBC. The child, who was not publicly identified, later died of rabies. Treatment nearly always prevents harm to someone who has been exposed, but it has to begin before symptoms appear, per CBS News. The September case was the first domestically acquired human rabies infection in Ontario since 1967.
Health Canada reports there have been 28 cases of rabies across six provinces since 1924. All were fatal. The agency said that almost all of the cases resulted from exposure to bats or from exposure to rabies while the person was in another country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports fewer than 10 people die in the US each year of rabies, a large decline from the 1960s driven mostly by prevention efforts. There were 25 documented cases from 2009 to 2018, with seven of them contracted outside the country, the agency said.
Rabid bats are in every US state but Hawaii. Health officials recommend anyone bitten by an animal suspected of carrying the virus wash the wound with soap and water for 15 minutes and promptly seek medical attention, per CBS. Rabies' incubation period in humans can last weeks or months. The first symptoms can be much like the flu's, the CDC says, and last several days. (More rabies stories.)
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