1. Human Rabies — Wyoming and Utah, 2015
- Author
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Brett W. Petersen, Safdar Ansari, Alexia Harrist, Jo Dee Baker, DonRaphael P. Wynn, Michael Niezgoda, Justin Hopkin, Allyn Nakashima, Ashley Styczynski, Jeanmarie Mayer, Harry Rosado-Santos, Annette Atkinson, Melanie Spencer, Karl Musgrave, Lillian A. Orciari, Ashutosh Wadhwa, James A. Ellison, Ryan M. Wallace, Debbie Dean, Rene Edgar Condori, and Leslie Teachout
- Subjects
Wyoming ,0301 basic medicine ,medicine.medical_specialty ,Health (social science) ,Referral ,Rabies ,Epidemiology ,Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis ,medicine.medical_treatment ,030106 microbiology ,Vital signs ,Lasionycteris noctivagans ,medicine.disease_cause ,Risk Assessment ,03 medical and health sciences ,Fatal Outcome ,0302 clinical medicine ,Health Information Management ,Chiroptera ,Utah ,Environmental health ,Health care ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,030212 general & internal medicine ,Post-exposure prophylaxis ,Aged ,biology ,business.industry ,Public health ,Rabies virus ,General Medicine ,biology.organism_classification ,medicine.disease ,Emergency medicine ,Public Health Practice ,Female ,Contact Tracing ,Post-Exposure Prophylaxis ,business - Abstract
In September 2015, a Wyoming woman was admitted to a local hospital with a 5-day history of progressive weakness, ataxia, dysarthria, and dysphagia. Because of respiratory failure, she was transferred to a referral hospital in Utah, where she developed progressive encephalitis. On day 8 of hospitalization, the patient's family told clinicians they recalled that, 1 month before admission, the woman had found a bat on her neck upon waking, but had not sought medical care. The patient's husband subsequently had contacted county invasive species authorities about the incident, but he was not advised to seek health care for evaluation of his wife's risk for rabies. On October 2, CDC confirmed the patient was infected with a rabies virus variant that was enzootic to the silver-haired bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans). The patient died on October 3. Public understanding of rabies risk from bat contact needs to be improved; cooperation among public health and other agencies can aid in referring persons with possible bat exposure for assessment of rabies risk.
- Published
- 2016
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