Quote:
Originally Posted by blueash
Watching for symptoms of rabies is not a viable option. Once symptoms appear you will need to be arranging your memorial service. There is no treatment for rabies. There is prevention which must be started within days of your bat exposure.
First thing, if you just like playing the odds there are fewer than five deaths per year in the US from rabies so the likelihood that you are heading toward Old Yeller territory is slim, very slim, but not zero.
As you know you had a bat exposure and you wrote that you experienced a poke feeling then the animal potentially broke your skin. The bite mark left by a bat can be so small as to not be visible. Here is the CDC recommendation on assessing your risk
It is absolutely not normal behavior for a bat to land on a human.
To summarize
1. You know a bat behaving abnormally landed on you
2. You felt a poke to your skin
3. Rabies is essentially 100% fatal
4. Rabies is essentially 100% preventable with rabies shots in your arm
5. The odds are the bat was not rabid. Are you feeling lucky?
Contact your local county health department for guidance. Sumter County's phone is
352-569-3102
Obviously Covid calls may make it more difficult to get through but the local health dept. is your best resource. You do not need to go to an ER for rabies evaluation. |
Absolutely, positively 100% correct. Don't mess with this when a shot of RIG (Rabies Immune Globulin) will protect you. PS: I'd be less concerned with 0.3% fatal COVID than 100% fatal rabies under the circumstances. There is no way a "normal" bat lands on a human being.