CONCORD, N.H. (AP) – A New Hampshire resident may have contracted rabies after being bitten by a bat, Health and Human Resources Commissioner John Stephen said Friday.
“This is a suspect case of rabies in a 40-year-old individual from the Seacoast area,” Stephen said. “The individual is in critical condition.”
“My department is in close contact with the hospital and the surrounding family and we’re monitoring the situation very closely,” Stephen said. “It hasn’t been confirmed.”
He added, “This is a very serious issue.” The department also has been in contact with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We anticipate to receive further information as early as Monday.”
The person was hospitalized earlier this week, Stephen said.
Television reports have identified the person as Andrew Eaton of Seabrook, who is in a medically induced coma at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center.
Family members said Eaton became ill in March. About three months ago, he was doing roofing work when he thought he had been stung by a bee. He didn’t seek medical help at the time.
When he became ill, “he went to the hospital like three or four times,” Eaton’s son, Adam, told WMUR-TV. “He couldn’t swallow, he couldn’t drink, couldn’t eat,” and eventually had problems speaking, Adam Eaton said.
Rabies is caused by a virus transmitted through the saliva of an infected animal or person. It affects the brain and nervous system and initially causes flu-like symptoms, such as fever and malaise.
It can eventually cause anxiety, confusion, hallucinations and delirium. If untreated, the disease is almost always fatal, health officials said, but if someone seeks treatment immediately, it can almost always be cured.
Stephen said since 2000, there have been 24 reported rabies cases in the United States. Out of those, 23 have been fatal.
The last one reported in New Hampshire was in 1996, but that individual contracted rabies outside of the country; that person died.
Stephen it’s important that the public understand that any physical contact that results in a bite from a wild or stray animal is potentially a very serious matter and that a doctor should be contacted immediately.
“Last year, we had 571 samples sent to our state lab for rabies testing wild animals; 48 of those samples tested positive,” Stephen said. “In this year alone, so far, we had 100 samples sent and nine have tested positive. There’s no more inherent risk today than there was yesterday.”
Doctors in New Hampshire were consulting with doctors in Wisconsin, where, in 2004, a 15-year-old girl became the first known person to survive after developing the disease. Doctors there put her in a coma and treated her with a cocktail of four drugs .
in an experimental procedure.
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