A child in Ontario has died after contracting rabies from a bat, officials say.
During a Health Board meeting on Wednesday, Dr. Malcolm Lock, acting medical officer of health for the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit (HNHU), shared that the child had died after contracting the virus from a bat, The Canadian Press reports.
The child’s parents reportedly found the animal in the child’s bedroom when they woke up. After looking over the child and not finding any bites, scratches, or saliva, the parents decided against seeking out a rabies vaccine.
It is unclear how old the child was.
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RABIES: CONTRACTION, SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT
Rabies spreads through the saliva of an animal with the infection, typically through bites or scratches. Rabies attacks the nervous system of all warm-blooded animals, and is carried by a variety of species. Some common carriers of the virus include bats, dogs, cats and raccoons. If bitten or scratched, it is important to seek medical attention immediately.
Health Canada reports that early symptoms of rabies can include:
- fever
- tiredness
- headaches
- anxiety or irritability
- pain, tingling, numbness or itching around the area where an animal has bitten, scratched or licked.
As the virus spreads through the body, the neurologic symptoms of rabies can take one of two forms: encephalitic rabies and paralytic rabies.
Encephalitic rabies is the more common type of rabies, impacting about 80 per cent of patients.
Symptoms of encephalitic rabies can include anxiety, seizures, confusion, hyperactivity, hallucinations, strange behaviour and general agitation, fear of water (hydrophobia) and fear of fresh air or drafts of air (aerophobia).
Meanwhile, paralytic rabies impacts about 20 per cent of patients. Symptoms of paralytic rabies include weakness and gradual paralysis, often starting near the wound site and progressing slowly.
Those who have been exposed to the virus are urged to contact their health-care provider immediately.
“Without prompt treatment, and once symptoms appear, rabies is nearly 100 per cent fatal in both animals and humans,” the HNHU website reads.
According to the federal government, since record keeping began in 1924, there have been a total of 28 human cases of rabies recorded in Canada across six provinces, all of which were fatal.
Officials say that symptoms of the virus usually take three to eight weeks to develop, but can appear in as little as a few days, or after many months. Once infected people begin to experience symptoms, death usually happens between one and two weeks.
The last case of rabies transmitted to a human from a non-flying animal in Canada happened back in 1967. Since then all human cases of rabies in the country have been due to exposure to bats, or exposure to the virus in another country.
