A California teacher has reportedly died of rabies after she was bitten by a bat she found in her classroom.
Fresno County has confirmed one of its residents passed away from the disease after a suspected bat bite, but declined to identify the victim.
A friend speaking on behalf of the family told The Fresno Bee the person who died was 60-year-old Leah Seneng, an artist and art teacher at Bryant Middle School in Dos Palos.
The victim was exposed to rabies in mid-October, went to a Fresno County emergency room last week, was admitted to the hospital on Nov. 18 and passed away on Nov. 22, said Joe Prado, assistant director of the Fresno County Department of Public Health, during a media briefing on Tuesday, Nov. 26.
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Rabies — a fatal viral disease carried in saliva — is spread when an infected animal bites or scratches a person, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes.
Human rabies cases are so rare that the last one in Fresno County happened in 1992, said Dr. Trinidad Solis, deputy health officer at the department.
Seneng was bitten after she found a bat in her classroom, her friend Laura Splotch said.
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“I don’t know if she thought it was dead or what, because it was laying around her classroom and she was trying to scoop it up and take it outside,” Splotch told KFSN, the local news station.
"She didn’t want to harm it. But that’s when I guess it woke up or saw the light or whatever, it swooped around a bit and it took off."
Rabies symptoms
The teacher didn’t have any symptoms at first, but became ill about a month later.
It takes four to eight weeks after a person is bitten to develop symptoms, so it’s important to seek care immediately so the patient can receive a post-exposure vaccine as soon as possible, Solis said. That will give their body time to develop antibodies and fight the virus.
The first symptoms may be flu-like weakness, discomfort, fever or headache, according to the CDC.
When the disease progresses, it causes brain dysfunction.
Warning signs include:
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Confusion
- Agitation
- Delirium
- Hallucinations
- Fear of water
- Hypersalivation
- Seizures
There is no cure once symptoms develop, so most people die at that point, she added.
Seneng was in a coma before she passed away, Splotch said.
“It’s just devastating to see her in that state, with all the machines hooked up and everything, it was pretty upsetting and scary,” Splotch told KFSN.
“She was a lover of life. She spent a lot of time in the mountains where her mother lived. She loved to explore the world.”
Rabies is spread through saliva and other bodily fluids, so the victim’s household contacts have received the vaccine in case they were exposed, Solis said. So have hospital workers who treated the person. But there’s no evidence of human-to-human transmission so far, she added.
Only one to three human rabies cases are reported in the U.S. each year, but about 60,000 Americans receive the post-exposure vaccine after an animal bite or scratch, according to the CDC.
In the U.S., rabies is mostly found in bats, raccoons, skunks and foxes, the agency notes.
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