Vet on Life Support - Horse Flu

is this the virus spread by the fruit bats?

if so it is not what we call equine influenza. seem to remember that there was a Hendra out break a few years ago that also killed a number of people as well as horses.
 
Yes, it's the one spread by the bats.

It's pretty worrying, I'm not in Queensland, but there are plenty of bats around where I live.
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bats are real disease-harbourers, i had no idea, was told about them recently. because they have hollow bones to make them light enough to fly, they don't have bone marrow, and apparently scientists don't really know how/where they make white blood cells to fight infection. they are like little vats of nasty diseases flying around, they don't seem to suffer from them but they spread them like mad.
i think they're charming, we have them here, but i now know to NEVER touch one and to avoid them like the little plague-carriers they are.
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LOL, they are not that bad Kerilli!

I have handled numerous bats and am still alive to tell the tale! Birds have hollow bones too - it's a pretty common thing in things which can fly.
 
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LOL, they are not that bad Kerilli!

I have handled numerous bats and am still alive to tell the tale! Birds have hollow bones too - it's a pretty common thing in things which can fly.

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yes, but birds don't bite!
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argh, i can't find the article i was sent now, but it had %ages of diseases that they carry, that they don't appear to suffer from but transmit iirc, and it was quite an eye-opener. i got the impression that they are a lot worse than birds in this respect.
 
Neither do bats particularly - I've never been bitten by one and I don't use gloves for handling! They are not like rodents in that respect (aside from dormice, which are also disinclined to bite), and I am always far more worried about the health implications from birds and bird droppings when I do internal inspections of buildings for bats than I am about the bats themselves, and the same goes for all the bat workers I know.
 
Yes, I would be very wary outside the UK! But in the UK you are pretty safe. Outside the UK they harbour all kinds of nasties, you are right, and I would not touch one either.

You get the occasional rabid one in the UK - they fly across the channel. A bat worker died in 2002 from a bite from a rabid bat, and it is standard practice for bat workers to have rabies jabs - when I was doing more of it I had mine.
 
ooh, nasty.
checked back through emails, found this:
"The main problem with bats and rabies is that it is often hard to tell
if one has been bitten by a bat because their teeth are so small. With
other rabid animals (foxes mostly where I live), bites are obvious and
treatment for them is sought immediately. With bats, a person might
never realize they'd been bitten until they developed symptoms, which
99% of the time is too late for treatment to be effective."
and
"In the US, bats are the main source of human exposure to
rabies. People ought to know better by now, but they keep handling sick
bats they find."
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Sorry, but you'd have to be pretty dim to not notice if something bites you hard enough, on the hand (which is sensitive anyway) to break the skin! After all, you'd notice if you put your hand on a needle, or you got a splinter!

I think the problem is less not noticing, more lack of education so people are not aware of the potential problems caused if you get bitten by a bat, therefore they don't get it checked out.
 
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i now know to NEVER touch one and to avoid them like the little plague-carriers they are.
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You don't have to touch a bat - or be bitten by one - to get Hendra (although I'm pretty sure it's never been reported outside Queensland.) It was first identified in 1994 when a racehorse trainer and 14 horses died in Hendra.

Fruit bats are believed to be the natural host - it doesn't harm them - but it can be lethal to horses and humans. It's actually NOT highly contagious - unlike EI, it isn't carried via a horse's respiratory system - although horses, cats and guinea pigs can excrete the virus in their urine.

Infection may have been via infected bat urine, an aborted bat foetus or reproductive fluids - possibly contaminating horse feed or bedding.
 
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