Epidemiologic Notes and Reports Possible Rabies
Exposure from Bats -- Texas
On December 28, 1983, a group of 11 children in Corpus Christi,
Texas, were exposed to dead bats. Due to extremely cold weather,
29
Mexican Free-Tail bats roosting under a bridge had frozen and
fallen
to the ground in the early morning. They were discovered by the
children, ages 4-14 years, about noon. The bats were partially
thawed, and several had blood draining from their mouths. One or
more
of the children, emulating a popular singer, put a bat in the mouth
and pretended to bite it. There ensued a free-for-all in which the
children threw bats at each other. All 11 children were hit by
bats.
Later that day, the Corpus Christi-Nueces County Department of
Public Health was notified of the incident, and by that evening,
the
Director of Public Health had discussed the situation with the nine
families involved. It was not possible to determine which children
were exposed to the blood and/or saliva of bats. Because of the
possibility that all the children had some exposure of mucous
membranes or scratches in the skin, the health director recommended
complete postexposure rabies prophylaxis for all 11 children; all
11
received it, and all have remained well. Only four of the 29 bats
were examined by the fluorescent antibody technique, and they were
negative. However, a 1983 sampling of approximately 600 south
Texas
bats had revealed a positive test rate of 15%.
Reported by CMG Buttery, MD, RM Rodriguez, MD, G McLerran, T
Villarreal, J Green, Corpus Christi-Nueces County Dept of Public
Health; O Sieber, MD, Driscoll Foundation Children's Hospital, TL
Gustafson, MD, CE Alexander, MD, State Epidemiologist, Texas Dept
of
Health; Viral and Rickettsial Zoonoses Br, Div of Viral Diseases,
Center for Infectious Diseases, CDC.
Editorial Note
Editorial Note: This episode illustrates two issues frequently
faced
by public health professionals with regard to bat rabies: (1) the
persons involved often cannot agree about the actual sequence of
events in such episodes; (2) the bats involved are frequently
unavailable for laboratory study. Thus, in this case, the critical
decisions regarding prophylaxis rested on questionable histories
provided by children and incomplete or unsatisfactory laboratory
specimens. News media events that show people playing with bats
may
not imply any danger; however, the national news media attention
given
this incident was beneficial in educating the public to potential
risks. Locally, it resulted in the identification of an additional
group of children in Corpus Christi that had played with dead bats
and
required rabies prophylaxis.
The risk to most of these children would appear to be
minimal--nonbite exposure to animals already dead, probably for
several hours. Exposure, if it occurred, would seem most likely
through bat saliva in direct contact with children's oral mucous
membranes when they mouthed the bats and/or by salivary
contamination
of fresh scratches and which, in this case, could have been made by
the bats' teeth and claws during play. Prevention of episodes such
as
this are probably impossible, but proper education of the public to
the health risks should reduce their occurrence.
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