- The man, 84, caught the bat and quickly washed his hands with soap and water
- Tests revealed the bat had rabies prompting him to begin treatment
- Do you know the man in this story? Email: luke.a.andrews@mailonline.co.uk
A Minnesota man died of rabies last year after waking up with a rabid bat biting his hand, US health officials revealed.
The 84-year-old, who has not been named, bathed the animal and quickly washed his hands with soap before returning to bed with his wife.
The couple was given post-exposure prophylaxis rabies treatment which included a series of rabies vaccines and antibody injections.
But five months later, the man returned to the hospital complaining of severe pain on the right side of his face and severe tearing in his eye.
He died 15 days later after suffering severe brain and spinal cord inflammation, according to a new report published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Medics said this is the first recorded case in the US of a rabies patient dying after receiving prophylaxis treatment in a ‘timely and appropriate’ manner.
Rabies is an almost always fatal infection unless patients are given drugs before symptoms appear.
It is caused by a virus that targets the central nervous system, triggering inflammation in the brain and spinal cords.
Humans can be infected by rabid animals – including bats, raccoons, skunks and foxes – usually through the saliva of infected animals.
Symptoms usually begin three to eight weeks after infection and begin as fever, headache, muscle weakness and general discomfort. But then it progresses to confusion, anxiety, hallucinations, paralysis and loss of consciousness.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that an average of two to three human deaths from rabies are reported in the United States each year.
But in 2021, the latest date available, five fatalities were recorded including an 84-year-old man and a seven-year-old boy. Four patients were bitten by a bat and one by a dog in the Philippines.
Dr Stacy Holzbauer, an epidemiologist at the CDC, said the report summarizes the ‘first reported failure of rabies [treatment] in the western hemisphere’.
They suggested that the treatments failed because the patients had an undiagnosed immune condition, which made the vaccines less effective.
The bite occurred on July 27, 2020, but the man did not become ill until January of the following year.
He had several underlying conditions, including coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney problems and an enlarged prostate.
During his first visit to the hospital, he received rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) medication and three doses of rabies vaccine.
The man went to the hospital three times complaining of sudden pain on the right side of his face and a tear in his right eye before being admitted.
By this time, however, the facial pain worsened and he began to suffer at night, redness of the right eye, facial paralysis and pain in the left ear.
Further swabs revealed that the man had encephalitis, or an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord. He also had a fever of 103.1F (39.5C).
Medics intubated the man to support his breathing but later decided to withdraw treatment. He died 15 days after symptoms appeared.
The test showed that he had rabies which was the same as the bat that bit his hand.
