An Unwelcome Visitor

Tuesday night my family and I had an unwelcome visitor come into our home.  My son woke me at 3:00 am to let me know that a bat had let itself into his upstairs bedroom.  Needless to say, my son did not spend the rest of the night in his room and I prayed that the bat would stay put until I could contact animal control in the morning. As it turned out, the bat was a little guy and perched over one of the windows until animal control trapped it with a net and put it in a coffee can.  Unfortunately, for this bat, it was euthanized and tested for rabies since it came into close contact with my family and pets. 

This close contact with this bat piqued my curiosity about bats in the local area and their relationship as carriers of rabies.  The two most common bats found in New Jersey that come in contact with humans in buildings such as homes are the big brown bat and the little brown bat.  The big brown bat is the most commonly tested bat for rabies.  All of the bats found in New Jersey are insectivores and can consume thousands of insects in a single night.  They are extremely important to our environment for insect control and help limit the amount of pesticide use needed. 

There are many myths associated with bats which in general are harmless to humans.  They can contract and transmit rabies, although less than one half of 1% of wild bats have rabies. In the past 50 years, only 48 U.S. residents have contracted rabies from bats.  Bats do not encounter humans by choice and do not get tangled in people’s hair.  Out of the more than 1,100 different species of bats worldwide, there are only three species of vampire bats and none live in the United States. Vampire bats only live in tropical climates and typically feed on cattle or poultry.

 Even if there is a low percentage of bats that carry rabies, I wanted to make sure that my dog and two cats received their boosters for their rabies vaccinations.  So, we made the trek with the three of them to the vet and once we were safely home again I read up on rabies, just in case.

 Rabies is caused by a virus and can only be spread either through the saliva or brain tissue of an infected mammal.  It cannot be spread through feces, blood or urine and the virus dies within an hour of being deposited in the environment. Rabies occurs most commonly in wildlife such as raccoons, bats, skunks, groundhogs, and foxes.  In domestic animals in New Jersey, rabies is most often seen in cats. 

If you are bitten by an animal, the most important first step to protecting yourself from rabies is washing the wound thoroughly with warm soap and water and then seeking medical help immediately.  Animal control should also be called so that the animal can be quarantined and if need be, tested for rabies.  Immediate medical care is key because there is no treatment for rabies once symptoms have developed.  Once a person is symptomatic, the disease is 99% fatal.  Signs and symptoms of rabies include the following: flu-like symptoms, partial paralysis, confusion, agitation, paranoia, terror, and hallucinations.

 The CDC recommends a post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for patients who have had an exposure receive one dose of human rabies immunoglobulin (an antibody to the rabies virus) and four doses of rabies vaccine over a 14-day period.  The vaccination schedule should be strictly followed and not changed even slightly in order to be effective. 

There have been a total of six survivors of rabies in the world to date.  A protocol called the “Milwaukee Protocol” was developed and named by Rodney Willoughby, Jr., M.D., following the successful treatment of his patient, Jeanna Giese.  She became the first person to survive a rabies infection without PEP.  This protocol involves a series of drugs given while the patient is placed into a drug-induced coma because most rabies deaths are caused by temporary brain dysfunction with little to no damage occurring to the brain itself.   The reasoning behind the success for this protocol is still quite controversial and it has been modified but to date it is the only treatment after symptoms have developed that has been successful.  Hopefully, with more research, we will have a better understanding of the processes that rabies infections take in the human body and how we can effectively treat it.