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24 March 2003
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Lyssavirus revisited
24 March 2003 19:29Today I took another bat, a broadnose, to the zoo for testing. I rescued him yesterday but he died overnight. Several things about j-bat worried me:
1- He was hugely agressive. I mean, wild animals are pretty cranky at the best of times, but this one was insane. He bit right through my canvas gloves, not a bad effort for an animal the size of a mouse. I felt his teeth on my skin but he didn't draw blood. He did this many times.
2- He had difficulty moving, like his arms and legs were stiff
3- He had an obsessive/compulsive need to groom and had scratched out his fur in great patches.
4- Tremors.
I was very worriedA quick Google search (australian bat lyssavirus symptoms) confirmed it in my mind. Tim the Zoovet said he'd send the body off to the Contageous Diseases Laboratory for testing. ABL isn't as bad as rabies but both people who were infected in the early 1990s died, so from a sample of 2 it is 100% fatal.
He also said that CDL is 90% certain that the bat that bit me two weeks ago is free of ABL. One more test to go and I can do a big woo hoo.
1- He was hugely agressive. I mean, wild animals are pretty cranky at the best of times, but this one was insane. He bit right through my canvas gloves, not a bad effort for an animal the size of a mouse. I felt his teeth on my skin but he didn't draw blood. He did this many times.
2- He had difficulty moving, like his arms and legs were stiff
3- He had an obsessive/compulsive need to groom and had scratched out his fur in great patches.
4- Tremors.
I was very worriedA quick Google search (australian bat lyssavirus symptoms) confirmed it in my mind. Tim the Zoovet said he'd send the body off to the Contageous Diseases Laboratory for testing. ABL isn't as bad as rabies but both people who were infected in the early 1990s died, so from a sample of 2 it is 100% fatal.
He also said that CDL is 90% certain that the bat that bit me two weeks ago is free of ABL. One more test to go and I can do a big woo hoo.