06.04.2023
While sleeping
A man died after waking up to a rabid bat biting his hand.
A man in Minnesota, USA, woke up in the middle of the night to find a bat biting his hand. Despite medical treatment, he died of the symptoms months later. The unnamed 84-year-old from Minnesota woke up in the middle of the night to find the animal on his hand. He shooed the animal away and immediately washed his hands with soap before going back to bed with his wife.
The couple then received post-exposure rabies prophylaxis (PEP), which included a series of vaccines against the disease and antibody injections. However, the man had to go back to the hospital after suffering severe pain a few months later. On his last visit, he was plagued with night sweats, facial paralysis, and pain in his left ear, and his right eye had turned red. He suffered encephalitis – severe swelling of the brain and spinal cord – and died 15 days later, according to a new report in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Tests revealed that he had developed the same rabies as the bat that bit him. Health officials said this was the first known case of a rabies patient in the United States dying after receiving “timely and appropriate” prophylactic treatment.
However, the CDC added that the problems may stem from an undiagnosed immune disease affecting the effectiveness of the vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 59,000 people die from the disease worldwide every year