An 11-year-old boy died in 2024 after contracting rabies from a bat that landed on his face while he slept. Doctors are now sharing details of the tragic case in an effort to raise awareness.
According to a case report published on Monday, June 29 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, as reported by the Daily Mail, the boy had been sleeping when the animal landed on his face, covering his nose and mouth. When he woke up, he swatted the bat away and his father managed to capture and release it outside the area in Northern Ontario, Canada, where they’d been staying.
The child had no visible bite marks or scratches on his body, so his family chose not to go to the doctor. However, almost three weeks later, the boy began to vomit persistently.
Ann Froschauer/USFWS
From there, the situation escalated quickly into major neurological issues with tingling and numbness in his face. Because the family insisted that the boy had never been bitten or scratched by the bat, doctors didn’t look into the possibility of rabies. When experts finally diagnosed him, the disease had advanced too far for him to be saved.
Even with two weeks of aggressive supportive care, the boy’s condition continued to worsen before he eventually succumbed to the disease. The case was the first locally acquired human rabies infection reported in Ontario since 1967.
Doctors involved in the case said that exposure to rabies can easily be missed because bats’ bites are so microscopic, they can go unnoticed.
According to the Mayo Clinic, rabies “spreads through the saliva of infected animals.” However, in rare cases, it can spread “when infected saliva gets into an open wound or the mucous membranes, such as the mouth or eyes,” which means it’s possible to contract the disease if an infected animal licks an open wound.
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