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Rabies!

Planigale said:
Bats!
www.bbc.co.uk

Boy dies of rabies after waking to bat on his face

Rabies infections are rare in Canada. There have been 28 human deaths due to rabies in the country since 1924.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk

Bat with rabies-like virus found on Isle of Wight

A woman is left shocked when a bat she rescued turned out to have had a rabies-like virus.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

UK has first rabies death in a century - PMC

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

A friend looked after the last case.
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Is it actually rabies, or is it sufficiently different that anti rabies vaccines don't work?
 
jimbob said:
Is it actually rabies, or is it sufficiently different that anti rabies vaccines don't work?
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As far as I know it was actually rabies. If not treated in time, rabies - in both humans and animals - is invariably fatal.
 
I'm immune.

No kidding. I used to donate plasma when I was at Purdue. Leading edge of the rabies vaccine insofar as I know. I donated consistently and became on of the folks who were asked to test the new vaccine. Got double the stipend and low blood sugar* so I got "more bang for the buck" as result when I went for a cold one.
 
Islands are great for wiping out contagious diseases, but I wouldn't call living on one a moral virtue.

Rabies is an easy one since it kills pretty quickly, and doesn't spread as easily as airborne contagions. Infected animals usually can't spread it very far before they die themselves. Even fast- and far-traveling humans generally aren't biting each other or spitting into open wounds.

Note that HIV, Covid-19, and influenza have all proven much harder to keep out of the British Isles.
 
jimbob said:
Is it actually rabies, or is it sufficiently different that anti rabies vaccines don't work?
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It is sufficiently close that rabies vaccines and immunoglobulin work. From a clinical PoV it is rabies; the virologists can differentiate the viruses, they are all lyssaviruses.
 
theprestige said:
Islands are great for wiping out contagious diseases, but I wouldn't call living on one a moral virtue.

Rabies is an easy one since it kills pretty quickly, and doesn't spread as easily as airborne contagions. Infected animals usually can't spread it very far before they die themselves. Even fast- and far-traveling humans generally aren't biting each other or spitting into open wounds.

Note that HIV, Covid-19, and influenza have all proven much harder to keep out of the British Isles.
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That is the issue about the bats, they can certainly manage to fly from the UK to Ireland, and from France to the UK.

If I was bitten by a bat in Ireland, I would want to be vaccinated against rabies (apart from the fact I am already vaccinated and would only need a booster).
 
Planigale said:
That is the issue about the bats, they can certainly manage to fly from the UK to Ireland, and from France to the UK.
If I was bitten by a bat in Ireland, I would want to be vaccinated against rabies (apart from the fact I am already vaccinated and would only need a booster).
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Two boosters, actually, according to Wikipedia.
 
Rabid baby goats prompt North Carolina mobile petting zoo scare (ABC News, Aug 30, 2026)
The animals belonged to Farm Adventures in Harmony, North Carolina, and were part of a traveling petting zoo that made at least 10 stops in six counties since July 28, including one at an assisted living facility and another at a back-to-school event, NCDHHS said in their statement.
"Impacted individuals should contact their local health department to determine whether medications are needed to prevent infection," according to the statement.
The goats were most likely exposed to rabies by a skunk that entered an enclosed pen where they were kept in late July, NCDHHS said.
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CDC Forced to Pause Rabies Testing Thanks to RFK Jr. (The New Republic,/yahoo!, April 1, 2026)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday that it had suspended diagnostic testing for a slew of viruses, including for rabies and a group of pox viruses that encompasses smallpox and mpox.
The CDC has provided diagnostic testing for decades, offering federal testing services for dozens of illnesses to state and local public health laboratories that are unable to do so independently.
(...)
"By July, the rabies team will be down to just one person with the clinical expertise to advise state and local officials, and the pox virus team will have none," reported The New York Times.
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Nearly 300 people exposed to goats with rabies at mobile petting zoo (CNN, April 4, 2026)
As of Wednesday, 284 people have been evaluated by local health departments, while others have consulted with a healthcare provider directly to assess their potential risk.
(...)
The state health department recommended post-exposure prophylaxis..for 213 of the people who were evaluated.
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As RFK Jr. Downplays Rabies, CDC Staff Tells Docs It's a Daily Threat (Medpage, May 1, 2026)
– Accurate risk assessment can spare patients from costly preventive care
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Thank you, president Trump. Thank you, HHS secretary RFK Jr.
We know that you mean well and are beyond reproach.
 
I had my two cats vaccinated again after not having had checkups for quite some time. It was probably unnecessary to get the rabies and other shots since they never go outside (except to the vet). But even to get their nails clipped they have to be up to date on their vaccines.
I normally clip them myself, but this time I went too long and a couple had grown and were close to embedding the tips, so I didn't want to mess with them.
I have squirrels and rabbits and the occasional possum or fox in the back yard. One squirrel in particular kept coming close when I was eating shelled peanuts. At one point I held one in my hand to encourage it coming closer, and it jumped up and scratched my arm. I gave some thought to going to the doc but decided not to. I don't do that any more -- I throw the nuts across the yard.
 
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alfaniner said:
I had my two cats vaccinated again after not having had checkups for quite some time. It was probably unnecessary to get the rabies and other shots since they never go outside (except to the vet). But even to get their nails clipped they have to be up to date on their vaccines.
I normally clip them myself, but this time I went too long and a couple had grown and were close to embedding the tips, so I didn't want to mess with them.
I have squirrels and rabbits and the occasional possum or fox in the back yard. One squirrel in particular kept coming close when I was eating shelled peanuts. At one point I held one in my hand to encourage it coming closer, and it jumped up and scratched my arm. I gave some thought to going to the doc but decided not to. I don't do that any more -- I throw the nuts across the yard.
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Not sure where you are, guessing NZ by the possums, but I don't think they have foxes, so Australia?

British (red) squirrels carry leprosy, the human type, just to give you something else to worry about apart from rabid bats!
 
A dead bat found a few blocks from my house tested positive for rabies. Authorities recommended that anyone in the area who thinks they may have been bitten by a bat should seek medical help immediately.

I'm wondering under what circumstances a person who thinks that they've been bitten by a bat wouldn't have done that already.
 
Planigale said:
Not sure where you are, guessing NZ by the possums, but I don't think they have foxes, so Australia?

British (red) squirrels carry leprosy, the human type, just to give you something else to worry about apart from rabid bats!
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U.S. mate!
I have to wonder how one gets in a situation where they can be bitten by a bat. Are they capturing and petting the damn things?
 
alfaniner said:
U.S. mate!
I have to wonder how one gets in a situation where they can be bitten by a bat. Are they capturing and petting the damn things?
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I thought that in the US you had the Irish variety; the O'Possums.

Yes, it is often petting them; the fatal UK case a friend was involved with the bat was in the house, it was captured, during which a small bite on a finger happened, and the bat was expelled from the house. During the next few weeks the virus spreads up the nerves from the finger to the brain. By the time that symptoms develop weeks later the patient is a brain eating zombie and you know civilisation is over.

Sorry that is Z virus not lyssa virus.

Once you confirm the diagnosis, you have the difficult discussion that this is a an inevitably fatal illness and we'll do our best to keep you comfortable.

The last time I had to do a somewhat similar discussion was with paraquat poisoning. A fully conscious patient, anxious relatives, and a fatal overdose with no antidote that will lead to inevitable death over the next few days. So many google questions; all with the same answer. This is a fatal overdose, over the next days the kidneys will stop working, we can dialyse. then the lungs and we can ventilate, we can put on heart lung bypass (ECMO) but no one will transplant lung and kidneys because the toxin is long lasting. We should move to palliative care.
 
Planigale said:
I thought that in the US you had the Irish variety; the O'Possums.

Yes, it is often petting them; the fatal UK case a friend was involved with the bat was in the house, it was captured, during which a small bite on a finger happened, and the bat was expelled from the house. During the next few weeks the virus spreads up the nerves from the finger to the brain. By the time that symptoms develop weeks later the patient is a brain eating zombie and you know civilisation is over.

Sorry that is Z virus not lyssa virus.

Once you confirm the diagnosis, you have the difficult discussion that this is a an inevitably fatal illness and we'll do our best to keep you comfortable.

The last time I had to do a somewhat similar discussion was with paraquat poisoning. A fully conscious patient, anxious relatives, and a fatal overdose with no antidote that will lead to inevitable death over the next few days. So many google questions; all with the same answer. This is a fatal overdose, over the next days the kidneys will stop working, we can dialyse. then the lungs and we can ventilate, we can put on heart lung bypass (ECMO) but no one will transplant lung and kidneys because the toxin is long lasting. We should move to palliative care.
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Oh, I guess we have the "o"possum type, but nobody says the "o".

I remember an old E.R. episode where a guy was doused in a chemical (fluorine?) and the resident/attending/doctor (Noah Wyle?) said that even though the guy looked fine at the time, he'd die in a few hours because his bones or something would dissolve and there was nothing they could do for him.
 
alfaniner said:
Oh, I guess we have the "o"possum type, but nobody says the "o".

I remember an old E.R. episode where a guy was doused in a chemical (fluorine?) and the resident/attending/doctor (Noah Wyle?) said that even though the guy looked fine at the time, he'd die in a few hours because his bones or something would dissolve and there was nothing they could do for him.
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Hydrogen Fluoride is one of most scary chemicals we use at my work. I have always avoided it*. The reported lack of feeling as the small molecules go through the two layers of PPE if it lands on the gloves and then goes through the skin in the same way.






*I'm quite comfortable with fuming nitric or concentrate sulphuric, and indeed mixing and boiling them but now don't play with chemicals
 
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