Details weren’t available on how the bats were found, but families often contact the health department after finding a bat in their home or dead bats on their property.
In Clark County, a 4-year-old boy had to undergo a series of rabies shots after he was bitten Aug. 1 by a bat that later tested positive for rabies.
Human rabies cases are rare in the U.S. The Ohio Department of Health investigates about 24,000 animal bites a year, but there hasn’t been a human rabies case in the state since 1970. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there have been no human rabies cases this year, but six were reported in 2011.
Rabies is a viral disease that attacks the central nervous system. It is almost always fatal. Animal bites are the most common form of exposure, and bats, skunks and raccoons pose the greatest risk of rabies in Ohio.
Wharton advised that it’s almost impossible to tell if a bat has rabies just by looking at it. “It has to be tested in the lab,” he said. It’s also often difficult to detect a bat bite, so if families find bats in a young child’s room, it’s best to contact their doctor.
On Aug. 24, the state of Ohio began distributing raccoon bait doctored with rabies vaccine in Ashtabula, Columbiana, Jefferson, Mahoning, Trumbull, Belmont, Carrol, Harrison, Lake, Portage, Geauga, Summit and Cuyahoga counties in an effort to keep the animals from being infected and spreading the disease. In some of those counties, officials are field-testing new vaccines.
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