A man in his 50s from northern New South Wales died after contracting Australian bat lyssavirus, marking the state’s first recorded human fatality from the disease.
NSW Health confirmed that the man had been bitten by a bat several months ago and received treatment at the time but succumbed to the virus recently. They said an investigation was underway to determine whether additional exposures or factors played a role in the infection.
This is only the fourth case ever recorded in the country of Australian bat lyssavirus infection.
The virus, described by NSW Health as a “rabies-like infection”, attacks the central nervous system and is transmitted through bites or scratches from infected bats. Health officials say there is no effective treatment for the disease once symptoms develop.
Healthcare authorities are urging the public to avoid any contact with bats.
There have been no reports of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
Trish Paterson from the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre in Queensland told ABC News that bat-to-human transmission of the disease was “very rare”.
“Once you get it you pretty much die and that’s why we as carers have the vaccination,” she said. “But if you don’t touch bats, you can’t get bitten or scratched. There’s no other way to get lyssavirus other than a bite or a scratch.”
Australian bat lyssavirus, first detected in a fruit bat in northern New South Wales in May 1996, remains the country’s sole known lyssavirus.
It has since been found in multiple species such as flying foxes, fruit bats, and insect-eating microbats.
A fatality from the virus occurred in 1998, followed by the death of a child in 2012. Two cases were also recorded in horses in 2013.
Prof Tim Mahony, a research fellow in veterinary biology at the University of Queensland, told the Guardian that the fatal cases in humans were down to a “very rare convergence of different factors”.
“We’ve had four cases since we’ve known about it in the mid ‘90s. Over that time, I would expect thousands of people have been exposed to bats in some way or another,” he said.
According to the Australian health department, the symptoms of the infection have a similar clinical presentation to rabies. “The illness usually starts with flu-like symptoms that may last from a few days to weeks,” the Australian Centre for Disease Control says.
“Common symptoms include fatigue, fever, headache, pain and/or weakness at the site of infection, loss of appetite, and anxiety.”
The illness progresses to paralysis, delirium and seizures. “ABLV usually causes death within 1 to 2 weeks of the onset of symptoms,” the centre states on its website.
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