the Illinois Department of Public Health,<\/a> most recent cases of human rabies in the U.S. have been caused by rabid bats. While most bats don’t have rabies, the following signs could indicate a bat is more likely to be infected than others:<\/p>\nSeen during the day<\/p>\n
Found in a place where bats usually aren’t present (For example – a room in your home, on your lawn)<\/p>\n
Unable to fly <\/p>\n
People usually know when they have been bitten by a bat,\u00a0but that’s not always the case. According to IDPH, bats have very small teeth – and the marks they make aren’t always easy to see. <\/p>\n
If you find yourself in close proximity to a bat and aren’t sure you’ve been exposed, you’re encouraged to call your doctor or local health department to determine whether that’s the case.<\/p>\n
State officials recommend the following steps to protect yourself, other people and animals from rabies:<\/p>\n
Do not feed, touch or adopt wild animals or stray dogs or cats<\/p>\n
Vaccinated pets serve as a buffer between rabid wildlife and humans, so be sure dogs and cats are up-to-date on their rabies vaccinations<\/p>\n
Do not allow pets to roam free<\/p>\n
Do not attract wild animals to your home or yard. Store bird seed or other animal feed in containers with tight-fitting lids. Feed pets indoors. Make sure garbage cans are tightly capped. Board up any openings to your attic, basement, porch or garage. Cap chimneys with screens<\/p>\n
Encourage children to immediately tell an adult if they are bitten or scratched by an animal. Teach children not to approach or to touch any animal they do not know<\/p>\n
Report all animal bites to local animal control<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The McHenry County Department of Health is investigating after two people and an animal were exposed to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[97,61547],"class_list":{"0":"post-122187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mchenry-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}