An Australian woman fears she contracted a deadly virus after being bitten on the head by a bat while on holiday.
“I don’t want to believe a bat bit me,” Sandi Galloway, told the Cairns Post of the attack, which happened while she and her husband Gordon were outing in Cairns, Queensland.
The pair were strolling back to their hotel at around 11pm after having coffee with friends when suddenly Galloway felt something flapping close to him
“I felt something fly over my head,” said the horrified Aussie, recounting the “Dracula”-evoking encounter.
Since he was partially blind, Galloway flicked his hand up to stop the unknown creature from pouncing on him.
That’s when the unthinkable happened: “The next thing, I felt this pain, like two needle pricks in my forehead,” recalled the grandmother, who at first refused to accept that she had been bitten by a bat even though her partner told her that was what happened. .
Australian grandmother Sandi Galloway, 67, fears contracting a deadly virus after being bitten on the head by a bat while on holiday in Cairns. Facebook “Because I’m partially blind, I couldn’t see what it was so I flicked my hand up because it felt like it was going to land on me,” Galloway recalled. Facebook
He was specifically bitten by a flying fox, the largest species of bat with a wingspan of up to 5 feet — larger than a red-tailed hawk.
However, Galloway said he convinced himself it was “probably a spider” even though deep down he knew it wasn’t.
He didn’t want to face the reality that he had been attacked by a flying rat.
As Galloway showed no symptoms other than fatigue and loss of appetite, the elderly man forgot about the ordeal until he returned home and spoke to his daughter.
Galloway was bitten by a flying fox, the largest bat species.Craig – stock.adobe.com
“I don’t want to look stupid going to the doctor about the bite because I think this doesn’t happen in real life,” the gran rationalized. “Then I told my daughter and she told me I could get rabies from it and could die.”
Although Australian bats do not carry rabies, they can transmit Lyssavirus, which attacks the nervous system and has a 100% fatality rate in Australia.
Since the identification of the virus in 1996, there have been only three cases of infection in humans, all of whom died “as a result of ABLV infection after being bitten or scratched by a bat,” Health New South Wales reported.
All three cases were in Queensland while one involved an eight-year-old boy.
“The next thing, I felt this sharp, like two needle pricks in my forehead,” Galloway recalled of the attack.robdthepastrychef – stock.adobe.com
Alarmed, Galloway made an appointment with his doctor, then he was referred to an infectious disease specialist, who had to send the vaccine from Canberra.
Galloway reportedly received five injections on Wednesday and will need three more over the next three weeks.
“If I miss an injection, I have to start the whole process over again,” lamented Galloway, who had to postpone a cancer scan because of the difficulty.
“I have to reschedule my MRI because I have a brain tumor and I go for an annual checkup to make sure it’s not active, but I can’t do an MRI while taking this course of treatment,” he said.
Given the terrifying tale, Galloway vowed not to return to Cairns unless the flying foxes were relocated and called on the local government to do so.
“It would be the best thing for Cairns to get the bats out of the city and relocate them to less crowded areas,” he said.
Cairns Regional Council, which has waged an ongoing battle with fruit flies, said it was considering appropriate action following the “rare yet worrying incident.”
“If the council is notified of a significant flying-fox presence that could cause conflict between the public and the flying fox, signs will be installed around the site to alert the community,” they pledged.
bat bite Galloway.Facebook
Down Under isn’t the only place these winged mammals spread disease.
A 2019 study found that bats and other wild animals are the leading cause of rabies in the US compared to dogs.
More famously, bats have been blamed for triggering the virus responsible for the global COVID-19 pandemic, although this theory is disputed.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
