Emilia vexler
07/12/2021 12:28 PM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 07/12/2021 12:28 PM
"When I got home, I saw that they had something in their mouth. As the cubs are always biting something dangerous, I tried to remove them. There I kept the bat in my hand."
If it were not for the end of the story, the story seem mundane.
In the western part of the Buenos Aires suburbs –as well as in the north–,
bats
are not a rarity in contact with pets.
.
But Alejandra Rolón (54), a chief sonographer at a clinic in Ramos Mejía, had the feeling that there, in pieces, on the bed, there was
"something that could be very wrong
.
"
And he was not wrong.
He put the rest of the bat that the dogs had not eaten in a refrigerated jar and had it analyzed.
Fifteen days later, the result came back:
positive for rabies
.
When "rabies" is heard, it is most likely that one thinks "is eradicated" or, to a lesser extent, that the news of the death by human rabies, this year, in Coronel Suárez, of a woman who
had been bitten
is remembered
by a stray cat
.
It was the first fatal case after 13 years in the Province.
But the rage is more among us than it is believed.
Zaira Di Giorgio, the woman who died of rabies on May 13 in Coronel Suárez.
This is what the veterinarians say, so that
suspicious deaths of pets
with neurological symptoms at any age
are "not underestimated"
.
Not the bites of other people's animals.
And, above all, against the
decline in vaccination
of dogs and cats.
There is an epidemiological alert in the province due to the
increase in cases of rabies
in bats.
At the end of this note, 38 positive bats and Felipe, a three-and-a-half-month-old Labrador, had already been identified in the San Fernando Delta, who died on June 11.
In total, 9 people had to receive anti-rabies treatment.
Rabies has a
100% lethality.
It must be remembered that
not all bats have rabies
and that, at the same time, not all bats lead to analysis of a bat.
That is why the alert call on vaccination, from 3 months of age and with annual reinforcements.
To prevent.
Bats are the main source of transmission to other animals and people, through contact with their saliva by bite, although there is also the possibility that there is a viral passage from these natural reservoirs to other unvaccinated species, which is called the phenomenon of
spillover
.
Vaccination of dogs and cats from 3 months of age is key to preventing rabies.
Going back to the puppy story, the 2-year-old Weimaraner "mix" had received the vaccine just a year earlier.
The greyhound, another rescued, too.
Before knowing about the positive, Alejandra took them to the vet and vaccinated them again.
But that was not enough.
The bat scene was on October 18, 2020 and Alejandra and her pets' rabies treatment ended at the end of April.
"As I had the bat in my hand,
I had to do the whole vaccination plan
as if I had been bitten by a mad dog. For two months we had to vaccinate every week. They and I. Since then, and for six more months , control every week in the anti-rabies Villegas ", he tells
Clarín
.
Because of this, she was unable to volunteer for the
Johnson & Johnson
coronavirus
vaccine
, which the DIM diagnostic center, where she works, was testing.
He had to wait until March for that injection.
It was necessary to end up running into the bat.
"I thought that rabies was completely eradicated. But no. They told me that there were many cases of positive bats. People think it is a joke, and it is deadly. Pets
always have to be vaccinated,
" he adds, as a message to the society.
For that bottle with half a bat, Alejandra managed to stop more infections.
The team of veterinarians he contacted came to vaccinate all the dogs and cats on his block.
Just in case.
Positive bats
Gustavo Martínez, head of Urban Zoonoses of the Directorate of Epidemiology of the Ministry of Health of the Province of Buenos Aires, gave details of these cases to
Clarín
.
"Bat contacts are always few and, generally, there is a pet involved or sporadically a person. When they arise, the exclusion protocol is what is done: relocate the bat colony elsewhere, if it is in the house. "says Martínez.
Dogs and cats can contract rabies by coming into contact with saliva from an infected bat.
AFP photo
In the latest "Situation Report of the Provincial Rabies Control Program in the Covid 19 Pandemic", it appears that rabies in the province of Buenos Aires is endemic of its variants 4, 6, Myotis and Eptesicus, which all have as reservoirs natural to insectivorous bats.
In fact, Felipe, the northern labrador who died of rabies on June 11, due to a variant (unnumbered) of an insectivorous bat whose reservoir belongs to the Eptesicus species.
Those who lived with him in the house, and Moira López, the veterinarian who treated him, began anti-rabies treatment.
It should be noted that according to statistics from the Urban Zoonoses Laboratory, approximately
6% of the bats
sampled are positive.
The last cases of
spillover
detected in the PBA were: 1 feline in Chascomús (2002), 1 feline in Lomas de Zamora (2008), 1 feline in Punta Indio (2009), 1 canine in Villarino (2012), 1 feline in La Matanza (2014), 1 feline in Valeria del Mar (2017) and 1 feline in Balcarce (2020).
In 2018, 132 air rabies outbreaks were detected and controlled, decreasing to 89 outbreaks in 2019, 66 outbreaks in 2020 and, as of June of this year, there are already 38 outbreaks.
And it is estimated that the number at the end of the year will be higher than 2020.
"The anti-rabies vaccination coverage achieved, with public resources and at the provincial level, had been maintained on average and until 2019 between 14.5 to 15%, until
a drop
was
suffered to 6.10% in 2020
due to the restrictions on circulation and strict social isolation due to the health emergency caused by the pandemic ", Martínez closes.
There are no statistics on this half of the year but professionals agree that it continues to decline.
In the presumptive diagnosis, veterinarians already take this disease into account so as not to expose themselves.
And in the sector there is even talk of the
need to get vaccinated preventively in the
face of this professional risk.
MG
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