Bat found in a Salt Lake City park tests positive for rabies

A bat found in Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City on Sept. 27 has tested positive for rabies, the Utah Public Health Lab told the Salt Lake County Health Department on Tuesday, per a department release.
Salt Lake County Animal Services removed the bat from the park, where members of the city’s unsheltered community had handled the bat previously.
The health department is working with homeless resource centers and other community partners to notify people who regularly spend time at Pioneer Park of the bat’s diagnosis and provide rabies treatment to anyone that may have come into contact with the bat.
They’re asking anyone who has touched or been touched by a bat in the area to call 385-468-4222 (option 4) and get evaluated for rabies treatment.
Rabies can be carried and transmitted by any wild mammal, including raccoons, bats and foxes. The infectious viral disease attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted through infected material, like saliva, that gets into the eyes, nose, mouth or wounds. Pets can also carry the disease, so various states have laws that require them to be vaccinated.
Bats most commonly carry rabies in the U.S., the health department noted. Because bat scratches can be so small as to go unfelt, all contact with bats diagnosed with rabies count as exposures to the disease.
Rabies symptoms in humans include, “insomnia, anxiety, confusion, slight or partial paralysis, excitation, hallucinations, agitation, increase in saliva, difficulty swallowing and fear of water” and once these clinical symptoms are present, the case is “considered 100% fatal.”
As a result, rabies cases must be treated as soon as possible after the exposure, even when it’s uncertain the transmitting animal has it.
Treatment consists of a round of shots of rabies vaccinations, four shots over 14 days, per the Cleveland Clinic. Your healthcare provider may also administer injections of human rabies immune globulin around the infected wound, which will provide antibodies to dismantle the virus until the body’s immune system can act. HRIG should not be administered, however, if you’d gotten vaccinated before the exposure, the clinic specified.
While you can’t know for sure that a bat is afflicted by rabies without proper testing, there are a few rabies red flags authorities want you to know about.
Healthy bats tend to keep to themselves and are generally harmless. They can be found hanging upside down from trees and buildings, which should not concern those who see them, if they’re behaving normally.
Bats with rabies, however, are a threat to humans and behave differently from healthy bats. Rabies-infected bats are usually weak, dehydrated and possibly unable to fly, owing to slight changes in behavior. They may be unable to fly or have a hard time flying, meaning they could be found on the ground or other places they’d usually avoid.
These are bats to steer clear of and the presence of which you should notify your local animal control agency about.
If you encounter a strangely behaving bat, do not try to capture or help it. Stay away, and keep children and pets away from the afflicted animal.
The health department notes in the news release that people who stumble upon bats should not harm them, even if it’s believed the bat has rabies.
In Utah, all bat species are protected due to their environmental importance. Bats are known pollinators and act as natural pest control, as well as disperse plant seeds. Any person that harms or kills a bat is in violation of Utah law.