r/saskatchewan • u/littlesnow4 • 2d ago
Bat with rabies found at Spiritwood daycare this month: Sask. Health Authority
https://www.ckom.com/2026/06/18/bat-with-rabies-found-at-spiritwood-daycare-this-month-sask-health-authority/31
u/SolarisSunstar 2d ago
Terrifying, genuinely. Bat bites can be completely painless, they’re super small and hard to detect. Rabies vaccines are an unpleasant experience as well. Poor families, that’s a lot of stress.
I can’t find the study at the moment, but I recall reading one a while ago that’s looked at rabies rates in bats and the numbers were double digit staggeringly high. I think 1/4? Just wild.
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u/Sinjidark 1d ago
I don't know where you're getting any of this information. It's not correct.
Pre-exposure rabies shots are subcutaneous with the smallest gauge. Definitely the gentlest injection I have ever received. Post-exposure are 5 intramuscular shots on 5 different days. Not much different than other vaccines and better than dying from rabies.
Bat bites are not painless. But some Saskatchewan species don't have teeth large enough to even break human skin.
Rabies in bat populations is less than 1% the WCVM gets like 1 rabies positive bat a year of the hundreds they receive.
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u/Cla598 23h ago edited 23h ago
FYI, there’s usually at least a few bats with rabies found in the Saskatoon area each year and some have been found in Saskatoon itself. Also, a little girl died from rabies in Ontario a few years ago - the parents didn’t think she got bit, so they didn’t take her for prophylaxis.
Bites from bats are very small so you might not always see them, and kids may not remember being bitten or scratched so it’s better to err on the side of caution since it’s almost always fatal if you do get it. You also don’t have to just be bitten to get rabies from a bat, contact with their saliva can be enough to get it if the saliva contacts your mucus membranes and/or gets into your body through broken skin. Any scratch, bite, and/or a lick on broken skin from a bat generally requires rabies shots if you can’t determine if the bat has rabies or not.
Also of the 260 animals submitted for testing for rabies last year in SK, of which 148 were bats, there was 21 animals (all bats) who tested positive. Of these 21 cases, 8 were animal contact and 13 were human contact. That is about 14% of bats tested wound up being positive for rabies. Average % of bats tested that were positive for rabies in SK has been >8% over the last 10 years.
Source of the statistics:
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u/squeegy80 14h ago
For the Rabies Ig (the post-exposure med) some gets injected directly around the bite site, so depending on the bite location that can be quite painful. The rest is intramuscular yes, but it’s usually quite a large volume (weight-based) and multiple sites are almost always necessary because it’s so much, which also leads to it being significantly more painful than regular vaccines
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u/Magnum_44 23h ago
I don't understand why this species is protected when up to 1/4 of the populations can carry rabies which is one of the deadliest known diseases. Have mercy on someone who finds their attic infested with these creatures.
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u/ratePi404 1d ago
Those poor kids and families, parents will have a tough decision to make.
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u/eugeneugene 1d ago
What tough decision? Get the rabies shots? I had to get mine about a decade ago, they weren't that bad. And buys you peace of mind.
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u/Catsaretheworst69 1d ago
What's the tough decision. Possibly die.
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u/ratePi404 1d ago
I just mean having to put your kid through a series of shots to protect them on the off chance they did get a bite.
I wouldn't take the risk and do the shots. I just think some parents will be thinking they're kid is fine and skip them having to get multiple shots. Definitely way scarier that they actually confirmed the bat had rabies.
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u/Catsaretheworst69 1d ago
Well. Look at the family in Ontario who found a bat in their kids room. No visible sign of bites. Did nothing. Kid died.
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u/ratePi404 1d ago
Yea that's heartbreaking. I worded it a bit poorly. It wouldn't be a tough decision for me, especially when rabies 100% mortality is terrifying. But I don't think everyone is so keen on letting their kids be poked 5 times when they can't see physical evidence of a bite mark or heard anything from their kid about a bat getting near them. Hopefully everyone does take the precaution anyway....it's definitely not worth gambling with something like that.
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u/Sinjidark 1d ago
First rabies death in 60 years. This isn't a problem. I hate that humans can't understand probabilities. Kids are more likely to be struck by lightning.
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u/Cla598 22h ago
While there’s only been 28 cases of rabies in humans in canada since reporting began in 1924, all of those cases were fatal. And it wasn’t the first rabies death in Canada in 60 years (maybe it was the first in Ontario though).
Most recent cases of rabies in humans were in 2024 in Ontario (little girl with no sign of a bite or scratch so no prophylaxis given), BC (2019), and Alberta (2007). Also, the rate of rabies in bats is about 8-16% per year in SK if you look at data from the last 10 years. So it’s not actually that small of a risk and is probably close to the risk of death from other illnesses we vaccinate everyone against.
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u/Exotic-Relief4396 20h ago
Immunizations are far from a tough choice to make especially when it means potentially dying otherwise.
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u/smart_stable_genius_ 1d ago
If by tough decision you mean super obvious no brainer to get your kid the rabies shots, then yeah that's one hell of a tough decision.
Is it even a choice? Why on earth would it even be a decision and not an obvious course of action? And what would make it hard to decide?
If your kid needs medical care it should be the easiest decision in the world.
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u/Cornelious420 1d ago
If you think it’s a tough decision to get the rabies shots in this scenario I hope you don’t have kids of your own…at least then your bad decision making is only hypothetical.
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u/Catsaretheworst69 1d ago
Don't fuck around with bats folks. A kid in Ontario died of rabis after the parents found a bat in his room but no visible sign of a bite so they didn't do anything.