Bat Tests Positive for Rabies

Written by Mischa Arnosky
Plymouth Township Manager Karen Weiss said during Monday night’s council meeting that a bat recently tested positive for rabies in the township.

Weiss said the bat was found Aug. 10 in the 300 block of Manor Avenue in Plymouth Meeting. 

According to the Montco Health Department, rabies is usually transmitted through saliva contact via a bite or scratch from a rabid animal. Symptoms of rabies infection begin with fever, headache, and flu-like symptoms, can then progress to aggression, hyper salivation, spasms of the throat muscles, hallucinations, and paralysis, and ultimately ends in death. And according to the health department, the most common carries of rabies in Pennsylvania are bats, cats, dogs, foxes, skunks, raccoons and groundhogs.

If there's a risk that a person may have been exposed to rabies, he or she may need a rabies Post Exposure Prophylaxis — a series of injections given at four specific times after exposure.

Weiss said that anyone who has come in contact with a bat recently should call the Montgomery County Health Department at 610-278-5117. 

For more on rabies from the Montgomery County Health Department, see the agency’s June newsletter in the pdf section of this post.