To be terrified of something quite irrational??

[AnxiousAllTheTimeNow]

Please can somebody help put my mind at risk as I'm currently working myself up with fear and worry.

I feel a bit silly but I can't help it.

Rabies. I'm in the UK.

I know that it's very very rare in the UK. But we still have bats here, don't we? And there's a species of bat that can carry it?

I have a cat who goes outside a fair bit although she does spend a lot of time indoors. There are squirrels, foxes nearby and she has chased a squirrel from time to time.

There are bats nearby in the local park (although I live in a city).

Can rabies cross species? What are the chances of her getting bitten by a bat? Can she then transmit it to me?

I'm so scared. I read of a bat handler in Scotland in 2002 who was bitten by a bat and died within days.

Yes I know it's rare. But what if one of the bats in our area has it??

So as not to drip feed, I suffer from anxiety and am on meds, which keep it relatively under control.

Please talk some sense in to me

We don't have rabies in the UK, last death from indigineous rabies was 1902.

Your cat will not get bit by a bat. There is no chance of you getting rabies. If this is really worrying you that much, I would hazard a guess that your anxiety isn’t under as much control as you think.

Rabies can be transmitted from any warm-blooded animal to any other warm-blooded animal (including humans) but the chances of any animal or person in the UK coming into contact with a rabid bat are vanishingly small. The UK is free of terrestrial rabies and the prevalence of the strain in Daubenton's bats is extremely low.

If this is affecting you to such an extent you could always have your cat vaccinated - I do this routinely as part of the requirements of the pet passport scheme. I'm not an advocate of unnecessary vaccination for any animal, but it may help to put your mind at rest if this issue is making you ill.

To put it in context, I have volunteered in veterinary clinics in Peru, Bolivia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Nepal, all countries with endemic rabies, and I am fine. I had the prophylactic vaccination as per recommendations, but I never had contact with any animal with suspected (let alone confirmed) rabies in all my time working in any of those places.

Your cat will not get bit by a bat.

have you tried saying that

VetOnCall

Thank you for your helpful reply
Is there a chance my cat could be bitten though? Would that be a plausible scenario?

Not unless you bite it first.

Most uk bats are really really tiny, they eat insects and fruit. There’s no reason a bat would bite a cat. We have bats in our loft, and spend summer evenings watching them catch insects over our pond. There is really nothing to worry about.

Well, nobody can say that it's 100% impossible but I really can't overemphasise how unlikely it is. If someone brought their cat to see me and asked if it was plausible that it had been bitten by a rabid bat here in the UK, my answer would be no, that is not a likely scenario at all. You've probably got more chance of winning the Euromillions tonight and then getting hit by lightning 10 minutes later.

Bats are quite timid, it's unlikely they would bite even if prodded a bit. We used to have them come into primary school so we could hold them!

Hi Anxious,
I’m a long time lurker but joined up to reply to you!

I’m an ecologist and specialise in bat work, for which I’ve got a bat workers licence. I also volunteer to do rescues of injured bats and work with The Bat Conservation Trust and three local bat hospitals in my region. Over the 16 or so years I’ve done this, and many bats that I’ve cared for, I’ve never actually encountered a rabid bat.

One species of uk bat (out of the 18 species we have) carries a rabies-like virus.

Carers like me who come into contact with a lot of bats take sensible precautions, like handling bats wearing gloves and having rabies vaccinations, but that reflects our greatly increased exposure to bats rather than it being a high risk.

It’s highly unlikely you or your cat will be bitten by a rabid bat. The chances of you having a direct encounter is low, the chances of a bat biting you is low, and the chances of it carrying rabies is very low.

And it’s even more unlikely that your cat would be bitten by a bat.

In fact, most injured bats are actually injured by cats. (I adore my cat, but I keep her in at night.) For the many, many injuries inflicted by cats (it probably adds up to thousands a year) I’ve never, ever heard of a bat contracting rabies from bats.

I hope this helps.
Bats are actually adorable, timid creatures. I recommend looking up a picture of a brown long-eared bat, and I’d be amazed if your heart didn’t melt a little bit....

Why don't you simply get your car vaccinated? Problem solved.

Thanks for the replies and sensible advice, I rang up the vets and asked about the vaccine. They said that she could have it done (£37).They also asked if I wanted a pet passport?

If she gets the vaccine done here in the UK will it protect her against the strain that the bats carry?

To the best of my knowledge, according to a few cases studied in France, it is believed that conventional rabies prophylaxis protects against European bat lyssavirus. Any exposure to a known or suspected rabid animal ALWAYS requires urgent post-exposure prophylaxis however. But seriously OP, the chance of your cat being bitten by bat, that bat being infected with EBLV, and the cat then transmitting rabies to you is, well, it's just not going to happen. It's really really not. In the last 30 odd years out of something like 15,000 bats that have been tested in the UK, only 14 have been found with EBLV. It has never been reported that any of them ever infected any domestic animals, or any other wild animals either.

I mean this kindly, but you might want to consider talking to your GP about your anxiety. If you are this anxious about your cat contracting rabies from a bat in the UK then it's really not under control. I could list about a million other highly unlikely things that you would still be more likely to die from than EBLV. Perhaps having an outdoor cat is not the best idea for you...