Rabies

Yes, it can be taken after exposure.

Can the vaccine be used against the virus retrospectively?

Wishing you and your family well OP. British posters don't understand how worrying this is.

One of the signs of a rabid animal is they approach humans/become uninhibited.

The crucial thing is did the bat bite you. I've never known a bat approach a human willingly. We have one fly in a couple of times, cute little creatures, both times it happily left

It's present in the bat population and official advice is to seek medical help if you are bitten or scratched nby a bat.

How about you watch clips of kids going through a rabies infection and then come back to us with the 'hysteria' comments

We don't have rabies in the British Isles though, @BiscuitBeast

Hummmm... your maths is a little off, the risk is 2 independent circles.

Bat with rabies × 1/2000

Or

Bat with no rabies × 1/2000

Ah yes the old "It didn't hurt me so it can't hurt you" defense. I didn't die while in a car using seatbelts so you don't need them! I smoked 5000 fags in a day and didn't die - let kids smoke them.

Its amazing the ignorance of people in the UK about rabies. I agree with another poster that its not in terrestrial animals here, but it is amazing how many people holiday and travel abroad and get bitten, scratched or licked by animals and are unaware of the danger. Cats in Turkey, monkeys in Thailand/Bali, dogs on beaches in India etc.

Luckily in the UK, we have a service that medical professionals can use and get post exposure advice and organise vaccines to be sent to the GP- at no cost to the patient. Its a busy service and they receive over 4000 calls a year!

Looking for The Mad Death on Britbox now....

OP, crossing everything for you. It’s not something we are generally aware of in the uk. I only know about preventative treatment through watching The Office US where Meredith being run over by Michael Scott means her close encounter with a bat in a bin bag comes to light and medics treat her. It seemed so ‘out there’ at the time that I googled it!

@muddlingthrou it's fine, many people in the UK have no knowledge of rabies and what it can do. I studied some virology at the start of Covid and rabies of course gets a mention, the only virus that will 100% kill every victim. People sometimes say, it can't profit any virus to kill all its victims. Well clearly that is wrong as rabies is happily carrying on despite that, likely because of its ability to make the victim aggressive and so spread the virus via saliva before the victim succumbs.

OP I really hope this is just a scare and that the bat was sick with some other complaint, not rabies, and that none of you have been bitten.

um...
1/200 chance this specific bat had rabies
? 1/2000 chance this specific bat bit someone in the household & they didn't notice ?

So what, 1 / 400,000 chance there's something to worry about ?
Has anything else every happened to you that had a 1/400k chance of happening?
How do you ever get in a car, btw.
As if worry is going to make anything better...

nb: I grew up in USA too. We had black widows, brown recluse, rattlers, mountain lions, chipmunks with hantavirus, lead paint, leaded gasoline, open-bed-no-restraints travel in pick up trucks, no seatbelts, crystal meth lab in the corner house, coyotes, possoms (they carry rabies too), kids flying down huge hills on skateboards with no protective gear at all, great white sharks, all sorts. No BFD.

Not always - bat bites can be tiny and painless!

Really hoping your bat comes back negative!

Let’s just hope bat tests negative for OP. :)

We are lucky in U.K. that Rabies prophylaxis vaccines are affordable.

I wasn’t aware of how long it could take to show symptoms til friend told me.

The closer to the brain the bite is- the shorter the timeframe- being bitten on a foot takes longer to reach brain .

There are some terrifying vids on you tube of rabies- I was surprised to see one poor man having thick saliva cleared from his mouth by a nurse with un gloved hands.

Video was from 1950’s?
Still more or less incurable.

Children especially are at risk , as they play out a lot and are more likely to get bitten or scratched by affected animals

Horses get rabies too - A pony went crazy biting people and screaming along an Indian street
It tested positive for rabies.

Affected passers by were vaccinated.

@CrunchyCarrot - and to you, posted already saying I realise now I didn't know what the hell I was talking about. Appreciate you and other posters schooling us on the reality and wishing OP all the best! A good lesson I'm not jumping the gun and posting before you do your research 🤦🏽‍♀️

@oakleaffy - I've already posted again apologising for my ignorance!

"The lady that we spoke to was very concerned that my husband had initially thrown the bat away. He spent an hour looking for it in the field. It hadn't moved. That is a sign of a sick bat, or so the woman on the phone told us."

Really? I thought it was a sign it was dead, and it was dead because your husband had killed it and threw the body in the field.

Really concerned at the folk posting as if they have knowledge on this zoonoses when it's clear they have none.

Firstly, whilst the UK doesn't have rabies 'on the ground' it is very much present in the bat population, and every year a small number of bats tested in the UK for rabies come back positive. This means you should never handle a bat in the UK without gloves, and if you are bitten, seek medical advice without delay. There has been a death in Scotland due to bat-contracted rabies, so, whilst the risk is small, and would be very rare, please be extremely careful with the information you are spreading online, it could be responsible for contributing to someone's death, however small the risk. Rabies is a very unpleasant disease and not something to fuck around with. I do not wish to give the impression that bats in the UK are riddled with rabies, but it's certainly present.

Please also bear in mind that possibly unlike the OP in the states, it's illegal to harm bats in the UK. I have my own views on killing an animal in the home, but I won't delve too much because a) it's now pointless, the animal has already been killed and b) I'm not in the OP's position whereby rabies is a much more common risk and having to pay thousands for vaccines, and c) I honestly don't know if they were given advice by official sources to kill it.

OP, it's up to you what you do. Personally I'd consider vaccinating the children, myself. You'll know as well I do recovery from rabies is unlikely, and whilst I believe advancements are being made, doubt it's something I'd risk with children - it's a horrendous disease. That being said, it's a game of weighing up the risks where the worst outcome is death - if the bat was in another room, it's unlikely (though not impossible) that any harm will come.

I'm very sorry that you are in this position of making this kind of choice. It's not right. I sincerely hope all turns out ok.

As long as you can wait for results, as quick as they are, then that’s good

I hope all is ok