We read your March 15 story on bats with interest but wanted to comment on the implied low risk of disease transmission from bats. It is true that bats are beneficial because they consume large numbers of insects and agricultural pests and pollinate plants, but it is also important to know that bats can carry bat variant rabies. Throughout history, bats have played and continue to play an important role in the maintenance and evolution of the rabies virus.
Rabies is a fatal viral disease that affects the nervous system of humans and other mammals. In the United States, the majority of human rabies cases over the past 30 years were caused by bat variant rabies, and most of those people could not remember being bitten. In recent years, bat variant rabies caused infection in one child in 2009 in Texas and was the rabies strain that killed an adult in Missouri in 2008, an adult in Minnesota in 2007 and two children, in Texas and Indiana, in 2006.
This is a reminder that people should enjoy bats only at a distance. Never handle or have any physical contact with bats. Teach your children not to touch bats and to tell an adult if a bat flies near them. Pets should be protected from bat exposures and from rabies through close supervision and through rabies vaccinations. All buildings occupied by humans should be bat-proofed.
