#lyssavirus

it's called bat lyssavirus and is typically, you guessed it, found in bats, it can be passed to humans and other animals through their saliva but despite the fact that bat populations are kind of fucking insane here, hardly anyone ever fucking catches it!

because unlike typical rabies, lyssavirus is kinda fucking shithouse at spreading, it's only found in less than 1% of wild bats, and the virus can be washed off contaminated surfaces with regular soap and a basic ass disinfectant, and if your pet is bitten or scratched by an infected bat the chance of it catching the virus is actually pretty damn low (but never zero so they should still always be immediately taken to a vet for vaccination just in case)

what's still super fucking of scary about it though is that if you were one of the extremely rare cases of an unvaccinated person becoming infected (only specialised wildlife handlers get preemptively vaxxed), if you don't get treatment before symptoms show YOU WILL DIE. If you do get treatment before symptoms show YOU STILL MIGHT DIE.

Lyssavirus is just as deadly and untreatable as rabies

which is why all wildlife rescue groups will have their own specialised and vaccinated team to handle wild bat rescues

just this week my state had its first human lyssavirus death, it is the fourth ever recorded case of a human contracting the virus in the entire country and despite having sought immediate treatment, he still became the fourth human to die from it

I just find it fascinating that even the most like, hopelessly non-infectious version of this virus is still so utterly fucking devastating if you're the unlucky son of a bitch who manages to catch it

LYSSAVIRUS

Moon intermission 2/4

I need to listen to that song! I’ve heard clips and it seems so good but I have yet to listen to it myself and I want to get the full angsty feel that from what I’ve scene it will bring!

(Also I vote you post a chapter before Sunday at 3 est so I can read it on a plane)

// If you live in a place that has both bats and rabies, doesn’t matter if you live in the city or the country side, if you live in a place that has both (and Bats can be found on nearly every part of the planet, except in extreme deserts and polar regions)

You need to be vaccinating all of your household pets for rabies. This includes your indoor only cats. Just because your cat is indoor only doesn’t mean it can’t catch rabies. Rabies is a death sentence.

And don’t tell me “oh but so and so survived” we don’t 100% know for sure they survived rabies. The only way we can test for rabies is by testing the brain tissue of someone who’s dead. They could have had other lyssavirus. After all the treatments they tried on those who “survived” rabies never worked on anyone other rabies case.

While, ideally if possible you should be vaccinating all animals you own for rabies if possible. Have you seen a rabid horse? It’s fucking terrifying. 

Bat-to-Man

The possibility of viruses spreading from bats to humans has taken on very real significance to us all in the last few years. Different species of lyssavirus, a family that includes the rabies virus, are carried by bats and there have been cases of cross-species transmission to other mammals. Researchers examined the mechanisms and transmission of 10 different lyssavirus species in mice. They developed a new pathogenicity index, ranking the viral incubation times and impact on survival. They found notable variation between species, and even found some to have higher rankings than rabies virus samples. Further investigation revealed that lyssavirus species (green in the mouse brain section pictured) are capable of infecting not only neurons (blue) but other brain cells called astrocytes (green) as well, revealing new details about how lyssaviruses affect animals, which could help equip us to handle potential virus outbreaks in the future.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Image from work by Antonia Klein and colleagues

Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI), Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Greifswald-Insel Riems, Germany

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, January 2022

Australian Bat Lyssairus, or just Lyssavirus for short, looks an awful lot like rabies in every single way except it doesn’t get out of the bats and infect non-bat hosts. This is how Australia calls itself rabies-free.

We still approach a bat with extreme care, because the adorable little viral replicators also carry things like Hendra, but clinically it’s not really something I ever worry about.

Frankly, it’s above my pay grade. If Lyssavirus, or real Rabies for that matter, was ever suspected in a patient of mine, I’d be obliged to get Biosecurity and the Chief Veterinary Officer involved, and I would very gladly hand off such a nightmare to them.