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CDC reports increase in human rabies cases linked to bats in the U.S.
- threevox 5y agoSounds like Michael Scott is going to need to organize another fun run
- sbelskie 5y agoMyth: 4 people in the United States died from rabies last year. Fact: 5 people in the United States died from rabies last year.
- tomschlick 5y agoHopefully we can get Olive Garden to sponsor a fettuccine alfredo stand for breakfast just before the race.
- khazhoux 5y agoI went on a wikipedia + YouTube walk on human rabies last month, and it is truly terrifying. > The period between infection and the first symptoms (incubation period) is typically 1–3 months in humans. This period may be as short as four days or longer than six years, depending on the location and severity of the wound and the amount of virus introduced. Initial symptoms of rabies are often nonspecific such as fever and headache. Death usually occurs 2 to 10 days after first symptoms. Survival is almost unknown once symptoms have presented, even with intensive care. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies Look up YouTube videos of patients if you want to be sad.
- cbfrench 5y agoCue the random comment that made me terrified of rabies: https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/81rr6f/he_fed_the_cute_trash_panda_and_looked_up_for_a/dv4xyks/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/comments/81rr6f/he_fed_the_cute...
- weaksauce 5y agoless scary than prion diseases like mad cow... imagine eating a burger ten years ago and dying from it. there was a notable case recently where a woman in a lab accidentally pricked her finger a long time ago and died from it. I believe it was in france. thankfully it is fairly rare.
- throwawayboise 5y agoImagine developing untreatable cancer and dying next year. Much more likely than either prion disease or rabies. You can't go through life afraid of "what if" we are all dead in the end anyway.
- khazhoux 5y agoChill, friend. He didn’t say he lives in mortal fear of burgers. Just how weird it would be for that tasty burger to kill you a decade later.
- Notanothertoo 5y agoPrions are doubly terrifying because it's not a typical disease. From what I understand it's proteins folding in a different way that come into (the prions can be dead or alive) and the healthy proteins will take on the new form. It's scary because typical sterilization (high heat) for surgery does not work guarantee it and the heat required is not currently practical. The shakes from that cannibals get are prions. I also though I saw a link to a subset of alzehimer cases but can't find it.
- spazrunaway 5y agoPrions are basically immortal. https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/06/researchers-make-surprising-discovery-about-spread-of-chronic-wasting-disease/ https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2015/06/researchers-make-surp... "...in 1985 when the Colorado Division of Wildlife tried to eliminate CWD from a research facility by treating the soil with chlorine, removing the treated soil, and applying an additional chlorine treatment before letting the facility remain vacant for more than a year, they were unsuccessful in eliminating CWD from the facility." There seems to be some kind of species barrier making it difficult for deer prions to infect humans, because people are certainly being exposed to it frequently, especially in areas like the midwest where CWD is rampant. But we're in deep trouble if that ever changes. Imagine people dying of CJD because deer peed in a field somewhere decades ago, the prions bound to the soil, then bound to a seed planted in the soil, then you ate whatever crop happened to be grown there. It'd be inescapable.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoWell at least you are dead within a few days but as an insomnia sufferer FFI (Fatal Familial Insomnia) really scares the shit out of me - you die due to being unable to sleep - not even propofol helps.
- tasha0663 5y agoWe had a bat in the house years ago. In my 3am stupor I tried to let it out until Dr. Spouse berated me and said we must catch it. Darn thing disappeared. Animal control came and couldn't find it. That's when I started reading about rabies. Freaked me out. Up until that point I had the attitude that if something felt off, just go to a doctor. Nope. Omae wa mo shindeiru. We had booked 2 adults and 2 diaper-age kids for PEP shots when I took the day off and turned the house upside down trying to find the bat. Eventually I found the dumb thing stuck to a glue trap for mice. No rabies. But yeah, people were looking at me like I was bonkers for scheduling the shots. "Did it bite you?" No idea! But I'm not going to take my chances on being the second person ever to come out not quite dead from a drug-induced coma after symptoms set in.
- MobileVet 5y agoNice work. You don’t take a gamble when the odds are 100%, especially for your kids. Booking the shots was the right call. My father in law knew better and still let the bat escape. Cost us $10k in shots for 3 of us.
- pengaru 5y agoIf covid-19 has taught me anything it's that I want absolutely nothing to do with bats or their habitats/waste stream. Previously I had zero appreciation for what an exceptional immune system the only flying mammals had evolved and how problematic that can be for other mammals.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoIn flight their heart rate is 1000 beats per minute and their body temperature approaches 105F (40C) - their high metabolism might explain a more tolerant immune response.
- klipt 5y agoBat virus encountering a human fever response: "a little cold, could you make it warmer?"
- pengaru 5y agoYou're on the right track, this post explains it in detail: https://get21stnight.com/2020/03/30/why-do-we-keep-getting-diseases-from-bats/ https://get21stnight.com/2020/03/30/why-do-we-keep-getting-d...
- Quikinterp 5y agoI don't know much about biology, what advantages does having a heart rate that fast have for a bat?
- tibbydudeza 5y agoBirds can extract more oxygen from each breath compared to bats - besides lungs they have additional air "storage" places called air sacs in their body. Their lungs do not contract like mammals but the air sacs do - so when they exhale their lungs are still performing a gas exchange.
- MrLeap 5y agoAchieving lift, presumably.
- billiam 5y agoDo we need any more reasons to avoid bats really?
- tibbydudeza 5y agoThey are mobile germ incubation factories - 25% of mammals on the planet are bats just second after rodents.
- jacquesm 5y agoAnd they roam quite incredible distances. Keep in mind that there are 1000+ species of bats and that some of them are huge. https://www.google.com/search?q=flying+fox&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=flying+fox&tbm=isch
- noodlenotes 5y ago25% by species. Bats only make up 1 billion out of 130 billion mammals, as near as I can tell from a quick Google.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoYep.
- CameronNemo 5y agoDoes that 130 billion include or exclude humans and their livestock?
- short12 5y agoRabies is crazy. Basically if you get it you die. There are a few exceptions like the girl in Wisconsin a while back And she wasnt doing something stupid either. If I recall correctly she grabbed a rafter in her Attic and bam
- Wowfunhappy 5y agoI thought the survival rate was extremely high if you get the vaccine very soon after being bitten?
- LandR 5y agoIf you get the vaccine before showing symptoms, it's pretty much 100% survival. If you show symptoms and haven't got the vaccine it's pretty much 100% fatal. Wild.
- WaitWaitWha 5y ago> Basically if you get it you die. Jeanna Giese (and six others) would disagree with you; and everyone else who where saved by the vaccine.
- short12 5y agoMy statement wasn't an absolute, hance the basically allows for room for exceptions. Which 6-7 people really do count as a super tiny minority. So what was your point again?
- mschuetz 5y agoAbout 50k die each year while the total number of people that survived after onset of symptoms can be counted on two hands. "Basically if you get it you die" is a quite good description. The vaccine is more a way to ensure you don't get it (the illness, not the virus), and it's useless once the illness actually sets in.
- hunterb123 5y agoNo there's a high chance of survival if you get the vaccine and/or glycoprotein before showing symptoms. A handful of people have survived entirely without.
- tomohawk 5y ago
- vnchr 5y agoIt’s just 15 days. What’s the worst that could happen?
- joelbondurant1 5y ago
- lame-robot-hoax 5y ago“Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents”
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoI got bitten by a dog when I was a 13 years old, but the owner refused to provide details about the dog. I had post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies. Five sets of shots into my torso. This was less than pleasant.
- AlbertCory 5y ago"21 shots in the stomach" used to be what they scared us kids with. A guy I knew recently got bitten by a dog and had to get the shots. He said it was five in the arm.
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoThis was... long, long, long time ago in a far far place.
- b112 5y agoWow. These days, details are given (eg, proof of dog having shots), or the dog is taken, killed, and brain examined for rabies. At least that's the way it is where live. And that doesn't even get into "if a dog bites, the owner can be criminally charged" side of things, and often is. Even mild cases of biting, may mean the animal is put down. Only exception is if the victim was engaged in a criminal act.
- tzs 5y agoRabies is pretty damn scary--but please learn what animals carry rabies where you live. I've seen people freak out because they've seen a raccoon in the daytime and think (1) raccoons are nocturnal so this one is acting strange, and (2) raccoons are rabies carriers, and so it is probably acting strange because it is rabid. In fact in this part of the country (western Washington) from 1988-2020 rabies has not been found in any wild terrestrial mammal. The only mammals found to have rabies over that time have been 530 bats, 2 cats, 1 horse, and 1 llama. There's a nifty map here [1] showing what animal populations have rabies in which states. So what does it mean when you see a raccoon in the daytime in western Washington? It almost always means they aren't finding enough food at night so have to put in overtime foraging. This is quite common around breeding time. The pregnant females need more food than normal and often will have to go out during the day to get it. BTW, I believe it is not known why rabies is not found in wild terrestrial mammals here. For squirrels there are at least three theories. (1) Squirrels are safely asleep in their nests when bats are out, so don't get bitten by bats and if they get bitten by something else that something else is probably big enough that the encounter is fatal for the squirrel, (2) maybe squirrels have strong natural immunity so don't get it even if they do get bitten, or (3) maybe squirrels are particularly vulnerable to it so if they get bitten by a bat they quickly die before they can spread it and since we don't do autopsies on random dead squirrels we come across we never find out about the briefly rabid squirrels. For raccoons, I don't think it is clear why they aren't picking it up from bats here. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/usa/surveillance/wild_animals.html https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/usa/surveillance/wild_an...
- lamontcg 5y ago> So what does it mean when you see a raccoon in the daytime in western Washington? I've chased a raccoon out from under my house in the middle of the daytime. It may just mean that someone annoyed the raccoon.
- tasha0663 5y agoEverywhere except Hawaii: Bats TIL there are mongoose (mongooses? mongeese?) in Puerto Rico.
- tasha0663 5y agoAnyone here know what > Embargoed Until: Thursday, January 6, 2022, 1:00 p.m. ET means? And why? This is months old by now and would have been nice to know.
- munificent 5y agoMy guess would be enough time for various people in the chain of command to check the text for correctness, messaging, etc.
- jdavis703 5y agoIt means they shared the press release to media outlets in advance so they could write an article about it. But the outlets are not supposed to release their articles until the embargo expires. This is a common practice for both government and private sector press releases.
- HWR_14 5y agoMy guess is every report by the CDC follows a standard embargo timeline unless it's time critical. You want to give journalists time to write a good article and not race each other to publish something first.
- spazrunaway 5y agoWhat's the risk of contact with bats outdoors? I often go for twilight walks and see them flying from tree to tree. But I sometimes wonder if a rabid one could swoop by, scrape me with its teeth, and I'd never even know. Maybe that's too paranoid...
- throwawayboise 5y agoYou're too paranoid. Bats have good enough echolocation ability to eat mosquitoes out of the air. They aren't going to fly into you by accident. Bats do a lot of good keeping other insects under control.
- powersurge360 5y agoBats do do a lot of good, but you also can be bitten by a rabid bat without knowing it. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/16/health/cases-a-bat-s-swift-bite-unfelt-that-could-bring-rabies.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/16/health/cases-a-bat-s-swif...
- woeirua 5y agoPretty unlikely if you're walking around outside. You'd hear/feel the bat flying near you.
- b112 5y agoMore worrisome should be lightning. Or even dying due to bedsheets.
- inglor_cz 5y agoBats generally avoid people outdoors. Your risk grows significantly if you enter their caves etc. Even bat guano is a good source of dangerous pathogens. If you sleep with your window open, I recommend installation of a screen. Not just against bats, against insects, too. My wife got stung by a hornet when she stepped on it with a bare foot (it was right next to our bed on the floor) and it was a very painful experience. Our next residence is definitely going to include screens.
- vmception 5y agoIncrease to 3 in one quarter
- joezydeco 5y ago"None of the three individuals received post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), shots that can prevent rabies from developing if received before symptoms start." This isn't news. This is people being stupid and dying. In the Illinois case the patient specifically refused the shots. https://abc7chicago.com/amp/rabies-in-humans-symptoms-vaccine-shot/11058270/ https://abc7chicago.com/amp/rabies-in-humans-symptoms-vaccin...
- gnulinux 5y agoThey may not necessarily know that they're bitten by a bat. It's unlikely but definitely possible and there have been such cases in the US before.
- joezydeco 5y agoHere, let me copy from the article so you can read it here: "The Illinois Department of Public Health said in mid-August, a man in his 80s woke to find a bat on his neck. The bat was captured and tested positive for rabies. While health officials told the man he needed to start post-exposure rabies treatment, he declined." Woke to find a bat on his neck. Those "I didn't know" cases do exist. This is not one of them.
- gnulinux 5y agoI understand that this is not one such case, I was merely pointing out that that's a possibility when it comes to bat rabies cases.
- bawolff 5y agoThe article linked said he knew it was a bat, they physically had the bat. They tested the bat for rabies and knew the bat had rabies. And still the person refused treatment. At what point is it a suicide?
- pstuart 5y agoMy nephew died from rabies from a bat bite (in the SF East Bay) many years ago. When he was bitten he was inebriated (picked up a wiggling bag and the bat inside bit him), and the next morning he never saw any bite wound (because their teeth are so slender they don't necessarily leave a mark) -- so he wrote the whole thing off. I'm haunted by his death. The painful lesson is that if one even thinks there was a possibility of a bat bite then one should seek treatment.
- bernardv 5y agoRabies is scary. My dog got it. Died within 12 hours of having first visible symptoms (change in behavior).
- woeirua 5y agoDid you not vaccinate your dog?
- almostrabies 5y agoJust something to share about this as someone who had a recent almost-rabies encounter. TLDR is that rabies shots cost like 4K/ea. My wife and I woke up in the middle of the night with a bat flying around our room (thanks to our cat jumping on the bed). We caught the bat and released it and basically thought nothing of it. A few days later my wife was talking to friend and she mentioned that we had a possible rabies encounter — bat bites are incredibly small and if you are sleeping its very possible you wouldn't have even felt the bite. Naturally we were shocked and searched our bodies and found nothing, but just to be certain we called our local department of health and found that, yes, this is a valid rabies exposure event and we were eligible for rabies care. (For future reference, you're supposed to basically catch and kill/freeze the animal and send it to animal control for rabies testing to see if you actually had an exposure. We were woken up at 4am so didn't really think to look up rabies protocol at the time) Cue USA Healthcare insanity. So we first find out after calling the hospital that rabies vaccines are only administered in the ER, meaning we can't just go to any urgent care center and get a shot. Not only this, but the rabies vaccine is a series of 4 shots, each about a week apart. And "because USA", the system has no way of remembering that we're in for a planned series of shots, meaning we have to be re-ingested into the ER every time we enter (keeping in mind that a global pandemic is still going on). So now we're going to the ER for about ~3 hours every few weeks, of which on _literally every visit_ they ask us the exact same series of boilerplate questions about basic health info. 99% of our time is filling out paperwork, the shot itself takes seconds. We started to wonder if it was really worth it, but its worth remembering rabies is basically 100% fatal. So it was basically risking sure death via rabies or being subjected to an ER wing during a global pandemic multiple times a month. We went with "get the shots". But it gets worse. So after everything is done, we get a hospital bill. As it turns out, EACH RABIES SHOT IS $4,000! EACH SHOT! This means that between my wife and I, we accrued $32,000 in medical bills for simply trying to not subject ourselves to absolute death. I find this totally insane. On top of the rabies bills we were also charged for ER charges, which apparently are weird because the ER doctors bill separately from the ER itself, and those costs also ran into the thousands. Luckily we had health insurance, and our county covered some of the costs as well. The whole structure of this is outrageous. Yes, for profit healthcare is bad, but this is on another level. Just imagining someone less fortunate than us that gets into this situation. You're staring down $32,000+ in medical bills, or death. Which do you choose? The whole experience left such a terrible taste in my mouth that I hate the USA even more for even requiring this calculus in the first place.
- gkanai 5y agoJapan is rabies-free and thus has a very strict quarantine for pets to come into Japan from overseas.
- rlt 5y agoThe words “CDC reports” are pretty much never a good thing…
- grawprog 5y agoI worked with bats years ago. I remember when I went for my pre-exposure rabies shots, the nurse who gave me the shots was very concerned about the work I was going into. Apparently, her first ever patient was a man who ended up dying of rabies. A bat had flown into his tent while he was camping somewhere up north and landed on his head. He had a small bite but never went into the doctors or anything until the rabies symptoms started. By the time he went in to get checked out, it was too late, he ended up dying slowly over a month. Even the pre-exposure rabies shots are only good for a year or two, at least when I got them. If I'd continued working with bats I would have needed yearly titer shots just to keep my immunity up enough to be safe around bats. The problem with bats and rabies is, bats can be carriers without showing any symptoms until they're near death. The only way to know for sure if a bat that bites you has rabies or not is to take it in to be tested.
- pqvst 5y agoRabies had never really been on my radar until I got bit by a dog in central Bangkok just over 2 years ago. After calling my travel insurance I rushed to a hospital for Rabies post-exposure treatment (although there were no clear signs that the dog was Rabid, I didn't want to take any chances). I was given a booster shot of anti-tetanus. I was given a Human Rabies Immune Globulin injection straight into the wound on my hand between my finger joints (this was extremely painful). Then I received my first dose of Rabies post-exposure vaccinations (Day 0, Day 3, Day 7, Day 14, and Day 28). The following injections were in my arm. All of the costs were covered by my travel insurance and my home healthcare system. The entire experience was traumatic. Even though I knew the circumstances were definitely in my favor (I knew the chance of the dog actually being rabid was probably quite low and I had received treatment within a couple of hours) I was still really freaked out for a couple of months. To make matters worse, just a few days after my incident, there was a Norwegian girl that died from rabies after getting bit by a dog. That definitely didn't help calm my nerves. Ever since then I am extremely cautious of any animals around me.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y agoInternational travelers and remote workers: This is why the CDC started blocking pet travel from most international locations starting on 7/15/21. In case you are wondering, the affected also include pets that initally departed from the US, regardless of rabies vaccination status. How the CDC finds time to worry about this in the middle of an ongoing pandemic, not sure.
- b112 5y agoYou should be glad and very, very happy the CDC has not dropped all other concerns, and continues to watch and deal with its full mandate. Anything else would be horribly incompetent. We absolutely don't want other departments at the CDC robbed of resources, funding, or we may well find far worse things than COVID happening.
- avs733 5y agoBecause the cdc also employs veterinarians who are much less busy with covid The cdc is huge…they do workplace safety to. A good portion of them have gotten sucked into covid but really it’s mostly been the people who do infectious disease, vaccination, or public health communications type stuff That’s not to say the staff at cdc are not just completely burned out from it…
- selimthegrim 5y agoProbably they were trying to live down the #SaveSocrates campaign
- joelbondurant1 5y ago