https://apnews.com/article/hea...c2edb335412d11255635

Illinois man dies of rabies after apparent bat bite

The man’s name was not released. Officials said he was in his 80s and lived in Lake County.

He woke up in mid-August and found a bat on his neck. This could happen to anyone

The bat was captured and later tested positive for rabies. The man declined to begin post-exposure rabies treatment, health officials said. Dumbass. Double supersonic dumbass.

Something similar happened to a young boy in Florida, not so long ago.

https://www.foxnews.com/health...cratched-by-sick-bat

Henry Roque had found a rabid bat, put it in a bucket and told his son not to touch it, but Ryker did anyway, and was scratched.

The father said he washed Ryker’s wound but didn’t take his son to the hospital because he cried when he told him he’d have to get shots.

Dammit. Just, dammit.


Post exposure treatment works.

If you wake up and there is a bat in the room, get to an ER. Bat bites can be so miniscule that they are not noticed by the victim. There is a book that describes the history of rabies going back to before the middle ages. There are major cultural issues surrounding the disease. The book is titled Rabid. It is relevant to what we are experiencing with COVID because it ultimately describes how the rabies vaccine was developed by Pasteur. There is no cure for rabies once the patient becomes symptomatic and is 100% fatal.

I remember a report of a man and woman who had bats in their house. They would let the bats lick them. Both got rabies, at least one died.

Rabies is so close to 100% fatal that the difference doesn't matter.

But it is totally curable if treated early.

Thanks to a friendly neighborhood dog named Tag and a noisy next door neighbor, I got to go through the rabies series when I was 8 years old.
They isolated the dog and went ahead and started the shots just in case the dog had rabies. Murphy's law prevailed. 15 in the stomach.

quote:

Originally posted by olfuzzy:
15 in the stomach.

That's the old treatment.

Its not that obnoxious now.

The actual rabies infection is still obnoxious.

Get the post-exposure treatment.

get your cats vaccinated too.

my vet said he sees about 2 cats per year with Rabies.

You only have 2 choices. Pick one. Be in a room with 10 covid sickened folks or in one with a bat overnight. No treatment. Only folks who are tired of living would pick number two.

what is the current rabies treatment?

quote:

Originally posted by DSgrouse:
what is the current rabies treatment?

https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/medical_care/index.html

They give you a big shot of "Human Rabies Immune Globulin" (basically rabies antibodies) and four doses of rabies vaccine over a two-week period.

quote:

Originally posted by DSgrouse:
what is the current rabies treatment?

RBIG + Vaccination series.

Grandson woke up with a bat in his room, took him to Doctor and he said don’t even take a chance.
6 shots and Grandson said it wasn’t bad.

I fear a rabid animal's bite much more than being mugged. One of the main reasons I carry a pistol everyday, when I go walking, last thing I want is to be bitten by a rabid animal.
But I have argued with medical people, yes getting bitten Is a transmitter, but if you even handle a rabid animal unknowingly, you could possibly contract rabies. By saliva, the animal could have licked on their fur.

quote:

Originally posted by Sunset_Va:
I fear a rabid animal's bite much more than being mugged. One of the main reasons I carry a pistol everyday, when I go walking, last thing I want is to be bitten by a rabid animal.
But I have argued with medical people, yes getting bitten Is a transmitter, but if you even handle a rabid animal unknowingly, you could possibly contract rabies. By saliva, the animal could have licked on their fur.

My cat is a former feral/stray. After catching her in fall of '19 to finish raising her feral little bastards (They convert real easily) her release time after surgery was close to winter here and she got real appreciative of indoor life during northern winters.

Now I do let her out spring-fall during nice days and put water outside for her. I always bring her and the water in by dusk so the water is not shared w/ bats. That's my biggest fear even though she has the shot.

quote:

He woke up in mid-August and found a bat on his neck.

If he was bitten on the neck, the rabies didn't take long to kill him. There is a much shorter distance for the virus to make its way to the brain than if he'd been bitten on, say, a finger.

The physical effects of the disease are so terrible, and infection so certain, that Pasteur's researchers kept a pistol at hand for themselves in the event they were bitten by an infected lab animal. It is a horrible disease.

My sister had a bat in the house one morning and her entire family had to get rabies treatment. Not fun but they are alive.

Yep.

People think nothing will kill them in this era of modern medicine and vaccinations?

Reminds me of the "Sweating Sickness" in England c.1500. Predominantly well-off dying within hours of symptoms. Cromwell's wife and two daughters included. The disease came and went; science is baffled but thinks it a hantavirus of unknown strain and origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweating_sickness

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_Hall