Canadian boy dies of rabies after waking to find bat on his face | Canada
A boy who woke up to find a bat over his nose and mouth while visiting a country house in Ontario later died of rabies, doctors in Canada say.
One report In an article published this week in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, infectious disease doctors confirmed that the 11-year-old boy died of rabies; They said this death likely could have been prevented if more awareness was raised about how the virus is transmitted.
The boy was with his family in northern Ontario in 2024 when he woke up to find a bat on his face. He threw it away, and his father immediately put it in a pot and let it out.
The parents did not see any scratches or bites on their son’s face or think the bat was acting strange. For this reason, at that time, they did not take into account the possibility that their son had rabies and did not take him to the doctor.
Doctors wrote that rabies is “extremely rare” in Canada, with only 28 cases documented since 1924 and the last confirmed case in Ontario dating back to 1967.
Experts wrote that rabid bats may display unusual behavior, such as emerging during the day, resting on the ground, having difficulty flying or being approached easily, but “the absence of these behaviors does not exclude rabies.”
They noted that although skunks, raccoons and foxes carry rabies in North America, the primary animal is bats. Bites and scratches are often so minor that they are “easily overlooked.” The virus can also be transmitted to humans through bat saliva coming into contact with cuts, eyes, nose or mouth.
19 days after the encounter with the stick, the child developed tingling, numbness and swelling on the right side of his face. He was initially discharged with a diagnosis of herpes gingivostomatitis, but bat exposure led the doctor to ask the local public health authority whether anti-rabies medication should be administered.
The next morning, his condition worsened and he was taken to intensive care with “strongly suspicious” staff.[ing] An MRI revealed lesions in the brainstem and tests pointed to rabies.
Although the team considered delivering rabies antibodies directly to the child’s brain, the “invasive nature and lack of proven effectiveness” of the procedure led the family and medical team not to seek further treatment.
The rabies virus typically has a relatively long incubation period before symptoms begin to appear, but once they appear there is no cure or cure and it is often fatal.
If doctors suspect someone has been bitten or scratched by a bat, rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) (a series of treatments given after the person has been exposed) is administered as quickly as possible and is “almost always effective,” the article says, citing overwhelming success in 29 million cases.
“Early recognition of exposure and timely PEP remains the only effective way to prevent rabies.”
