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Bats bite back

| September 4, 2010 9:00 PM

By staff and The Associated Press

COEUR d'ALENE - Three more people in the Wood River Valley were getting rabies vaccines after encounters with aggressive bats, public health officials said.

One person who was bitten and two more who may have been bitten were being vaccinated as a precaution, the Idaho Mountain Express reported Friday.

The encounters occurred in Ketchum, Hailey and Bellevue in central Idaho.

The rabies virus infects the central nervous system and is usually fatal after symptoms appear.

"Most of the rabies we see in Idaho is from bats," said South Central Public Health District epidemiologist Mary Jensen. "When they have rabies, bats will not act normally. They will be out in the daytime, rather than night or dusk. They may roll around on the ground."

Cynthia Taggart, spokeswoman for the Panhandle Health District, said Idaho had its first rabid bat encounter this year in March.

She said North Idaho has had numerous brushes this summer between bats, people and pets.

"That's par for the course in the summer and not alarming," Taggart wrote in an e-mail. "Bats are plentiful around here and none of the encounters were a problem, except the one in March, which tested positive for rabies."

Two adults found a bat flopping around in their bedroom in their Kootenai County home earlier this week. They froze it and brought it in to PHD for testing. The bat was sent to the state lab in Boise for testing, and PHD is awaiting the results.

Encounters with rabid bats are rare, Taggart said. If the bat carried rabies, the people will be advised to start a series of four shots over two weeks.

A woman and two children in Shoshone County went through the shot series in March after they found a dead bat in their kitchen. The doors to the bedroom were open and the bat had access to the mom and kids.

Four pet cats were playing with the dead bat. The cats were quarantined for 45 days. It wasn't longer because they were current on their rabies vaccine.

"Everyone, including the cats, were fine - and still are," Taggart wrote.

PHD cautions people to never pick up a bat with their bare hands and to teach their children that bats aren't toys. If they can catch a bat, it's probably sick.

A bat that attacked a fisherman northwest of Hailey in July tested positive for rabies. It was the second confirmed case of rabies in the state this year, and the first in south-central Idaho.

In the most recent encounters, none of the bats were captured for testing.

"Bats' teeth are so small and so fine people don't always know whether or not they have been bitten," Jensen said. "It's important to get checked out by a doctor if you have had direct contact with a bat."

Another bat encounter occurred when a person disturbed a sleeping bat that flew away without making contact with the person, officials said.

"If you see them, just walk away and leave them alone," Jensen said.