Saturday, March 13, 2021

Rabies shots


A note from John via Facebook: 

Working a run of night shifts ...

I slept at a friend’s empty house just down the street, since our house has kids and puppies and lots of noise.
Well, it turns out the house wasn’t so empty!
This little guy was on the door frame when I woke up. Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus).
Sure, bats in the house are not cool... but I love nature, so bats in someone else’s house is cool!
UPDATE: So, after reading up on rabies exposure, CDC recommends post-exposure prophylaxis for my situation with rabies vaccine and rabies immunoglobulin.
UPDATE 2: I’m status post 4 intramuscular shots... bats in anyone’s house are NOT cool now.
But outside bats are still cool. 🙂
And hey,
Wendi
...
Sherrie
saw my butt.

P.S. From UpToDate:
From 1990 to 2007, a total of 34 naturally acquired bat-associated human cases of rabies were reported. In 15 cases, physical contact was reported but no bite was documented, and in 11 cases, no known bat encounter was reported at all.
My comments:
First, rabies is 99.999% fatal.
Second, there is no cure for rabies.
Third, about 1/3 of rabies cases in humans in the above study occurred when there was NO KNOWN ENCOUNTER. We can identify the “strain” of rabies and know it came from a bat. 
Fourth, CDC recommends that if you wake up to a bat in the room, or if a bat was in the room with an inebriated person, an infant, or a person with mental disabilities, then they get the post-exposure treatment.
Fifth, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could get out of it. 🙂 But data and fatality information are too convincing.

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