About two weeks ago, there was a bat on the floor of the library. It was unable to fly, so i pushed him into a box with one of my folders. People are telling be that i should go get a shot because I handled the folder....i just assumed it was bites you had to worry about. Is this ridiculous?
2007-10-11 13:12:17 · 10 answers · asked by The Dude 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Medicine
no it was a folder...i may have open the folder that night and touched my face or something.
2007-10-11 13:53:10 · update #1
You can rabies from bats only if bitten OR the bat licks a open wound, assuming the bat was rabid to begin with.
Unfortunately, people who get bit by bats rarely ever know it happens. You should have kept the bat and called animal control or health officials to have the bat tested. If you are unsure, contact your health professional. Rabies can be treated even after a bite, as long as the symptoms do not appear. Have your health professional guide you to the best course of action.
2007-10-12 07:34:22 · answer #1 · answered by Joe T 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
As Graydoc pointed out, many bites from rabid bats aren't noted by the victim, so the norm is that you get the shots if, for instance, you wake up with a sick bat in the room with you, because it might have bitten you while you slept. Of course, the other point that you can't go back to would have been to send the bat to the health department for testing. It's all water under the bridge now, though.
2007-10-11 17:04:13 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is not ridiculous. Understanding the epidemiology of rabies has been aided by strain identification using monoclonal antibodies and nucleotide sequencing. In the United States, the number of cases of human rabies has decreased steadily since the 1950s, reflecting widespread rabies immunization of dogs and the availability of effective immunoprophylaxis after exposure to a rabid animal. Between 1990 and 2004, 34 (72%) of the 47 human rabies deaths in the United States (46 in the United States and 1 in Puerto Rico) have been associated with bat-variant rabies virus. Since 2000, 14 of 15 cases of indigenously acquired human rabies were associated with bat variants, and only 3 of these 15 human cases had known bat bites.
If your personal physician is hesitant, contact your local or your state health department, SOON! There are areas in the US where bats may be rabies free.
2007-10-11 16:38:44 · answer #3 · answered by greydoc6 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It's not just bites you have to worry about. Spelunkers often have to get rabies shots simply from breathing the air in caverns where certain number of bats live because of the bat guano. Since you handled the folder and dealt with a bat you have to get the rabies vaccine. Unless you catch the bat and it gets tested for rabies and doesn't have rabies, you have to get the vaccine. It's not ridiculous. It's for your safety and you wouldn't necessarily see symptoms now.
2007-10-13 10:19:22 · answer #4 · answered by Rockit 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The rabies virus does not stay too long interior the host animal after it dies,in spite of the shown fact that it does not could chew the kittens to transmit the ailment. Any blood or saliva can transmit the virus right into a wound or mucus membrane,so there does not could be a chew wound. Do what the vet recommends and be careful dealing with the kittens. Rabies is fairly undemanding in bats yet that doesn't advise that distinctive bat your kittens killed had the ailment. i'm hoping the little adult males are positive.interior the destiny, as quickly as any of your pets is sufficiently previous for his or her vacs,get them.
2016-10-22 02:16:14 · answer #5 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah, bites are all you need to worry about (unless the bat wsas knawng at the folder. Dont worry about it. If you could have been bitten by the bat at some point, I would defnintly go get checked out. If you ever sleep in a house/workplace where a bat has been found, you need shots. Also, try to keep it alive so they can tell if you or someone else needs a shot.
2007-10-11 16:15:16 · answer #6 · answered by ping1050 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Firstly, were you ever asleep at any time in the library? I am assuming that you never touched it, and it never touched you, and it did not bit you, and that you would be fully aware of it having bitten you if it did so, correct?
Of course bats carry rabies. And in my town where there are tons of them, and I even have them outside under the frames of parts of my house, at no time has one bitten me, although I have found some dead on the patio....and like you, I scooped them up and put them in the trash. Our health agency in this town recommends that if one ever gets in our house, that we called. If one is in you house when you awake in the morning, and it gets away, that we undergo shots. Now, I quickly add, that the shots today, are nothing like they were decades ago, so getting shots would be no big deal to us if we awoke and found one in the house.
However, if you were aware of every moment it was close to you, and it never bit you, you are correct, in that you have no reason to worry.... but for sure, go ahead and call your doc, and describe the ENTIRE scenerio and let him decide... There may be some things that you did not state here....
2007-10-11 17:00:37 · answer #7 · answered by April 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Basically bites is all you have to worry about. Touching the end of an object, the other end of which touched a sick bat, would not give you anything. Germs can't jump.
What did you do with the bat after you pushed it into the box?
2007-10-11 13:43:56 · answer #8 · answered by Howard H 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
ewww...you should of just called animal control and let them handle it! I would go immediately to the doctor and get checked out!
2007-10-11 13:21:53 · answer #9 · answered by Jane 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Is this ridiculous?
YES
2007-10-13 14:56:30 · answer #10 · answered by Mr. Mastershake 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋