B.C. man dies of rabies after coming into contact with bat

Last rabies death in B.C. was in 2003

Source

CBC News

Michelle Ghoussoub  

Jul 15, 2019 

A B.C. man has died of rabies at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver after coming into contact with a bat. (Tina Lovgreen)

A 21-year-old B.C. man has died of rabies after coming into contact with a bat on Vancouver Island, according to provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.

Henry said the man came into contact with the bat in mid-May and began showing symptoms six weeks later. He died at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver. His identity has not been released.

It is extremely rare for humans to die of rabies, said Henry.

Only 25 people have died from the disease in Canada since reporting began in 1924, according to Health Canada. Most deaths were in Ontario and Quebec. The most recent cases in Canada were in Ontario in 2012 and Alberta in 2007.

The man in B.C. is only the second person known to have died from rabies in that province. The previous case was in 2003.

Rabies is a virus that infects the nervous system, and symptoms include pain, weakness, and nerve pain that extends into the central nervous system and the brain. An aversion to water and an increase in saliva production are also common.

“It’s a terrible disease,” said Henry.

Henry said that while there is no recorded history of rabies being transferred between humans, the man’s family members and health-care workers who treated him have been offered the vaccine “to err on the side of caution.”

A big brown bat flies with a beetle in its mouth in this undated photo. Bats are the only animals that carry rabies in B.C. (Merlin D. Tuttle/Bat Conservation International/AP)

Contact with bats ‘risky’

Henry said the man’s symptoms progressed “very quickly.” It was only after he mentioned that he had come into contact with a bat that he was tested for rabies.

Henry said that though skin must be punctured for rabies to be passed from an animal to a human, it can be difficult to tell with a bat scratch.

“With a bat, you may not even recognize that a scratch has happened … that can happen very quickly so any sort of direct contact with a bat is a risky thing,” said Henry.

“Bats generally don’t want to be around humans so that’s one of the things that is worrisome. If you are in contact with a bat then you really need to be assessed so we can give you the vaccine to make sure we can prevent you from getting this terrible disease.”

In B.C., bats are the only known carrier for rabies. Around 13 percent of bats that are submitted test positive for the disease.

In other provinces, foxes, coyotes, and raccoons can also be carriers. In some countries, dogs are carriers of rabies, but that has been eliminated in Canada thanks to vaccination programs. However, pet owners are advised to consult a veterinarian if they believe their pet has come into contact with a bat.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle Ghoussoub

@MichelleGhsoub

Michelle Ghoussoub is a journalist with CBC News in Vancouver. She has previously reported in Lebanon and Chile. Reach her at michelle.ghoussoub@cbc.ca or on Twitter @MichelleGhsoub.

Capitalism, Waste and The Crack Heads

Well, this story is not about Victoria but I am from here and wrote it here. As no one seems to be posting on this site I thought I’d post an old article of mine in here in order to get the motivation going.  Anyone interested in being a contributor, editor?

A few years ago I was living in a small town in Vancouver Island, Canada. Port Alberni was/is a town  on the brink of collapse because the main employer, a pulp mill, had decided to shut down its operations in that town. ( The fact that the corporation is a foreign-owned company is for another post.)

I had a new friend.  He was an assistant manager for one of the big supermarkets that dominate the food supply in that town. Owned by Loblaw,  the largest food retailer in Canada, with over 1400 supermarkets.

That night he called me at around 11pm and asked me to come over. I sensed urgency in his voice so I was there in short time. He explained to me that, earlier on we had experienced a major black out, a power storm had knocked out the electricity supply to the town for three days. He had been told by senior management that all frozen foods were to be discarded. I asked him, why couldn’t they just give the foods to a local food bank? He said that they had to scan the frozen foods for insurance reasons, and then all the foods were to be put in the crusher and destroyed.

OK, so why not give the foods after the scanning ? They could not be bothered.

That’s why he called me. He knew I was an activist that had contacts in town. I knew many of the social outcasts in town. He asked me if I had an idea.

Doh! Not difficult really.

So after he scanned some of the foods, he let me take them. I proceeded for the next few hours to grab as much of the goods that my little vehicle could handle and brought them to Crack House Central. The place in town where no one knows your name. Crack heads have to eat and have families by the way. And yes, they do spend most, if not all of their money, on crack.

You should have seen the faces of the users when I showed up with about $1000 worth of frozen foods. I asked them to please take the foods home before continuing on their ride to Hell.

By the way, crack is gender neutral. There were as many women as men in the house when I arrived. 14 people sitting so quietly that you would not even suspect a cat lived there. That drug makes you paranoid to the extreme.

So we managed to save approximately $1000 worth of frozen food. My friend told me that altogether he must have destroyed another $5000 worth of stuff through the night.

So there you have it.

Capitalism at its most efficient self.

Lou