Tourists have been put on red alert following the death of a teenage boy died after he was bitten by a rabid bat in Mexico.
The tragedy came a year after an eight-year-old girl bitten by the creatures in the country died 10 days after her brother lost his life when they were also both attacked. The State Health Secretariat has confirmed the death of the 13-year-old after he was attacked by the animals carrying deadly disease in the municipality of Aquila, in the state of Michoacan. The area is popular with holidaymakers.
The terrible news prompted authorities in Aquila and nearby municipalities to step up an antirabies vaccination campaign to prevent any more similar cases. It took place in the community of Los Limones where the boy was bitten by the bat back in March. It was not until this week that the case was confirmed through the weekly report of the National Epidemiological Surveillance System.
Health authorities revealed that the child was not immediately taken to any health center after the attack saying, in fact, it was four weeks before he received medical attention. It was highlighted that the child’s health status was critical at the time of his admission to the local hospital, where the rabies virus had already spread around his body.
Typically when rabies symptoms are exhibited, it is already too late and the disease is no longer curable. This event marks the second death from rabies in Mexico and the first case recorded in the state of Michoacan after a man died in the state of Quintana Roo in February. Health authorities in Michoacan had stated that no case of rabies in humans had been reported since 1996 in the region.
Last year, an eight-year-old girl and her brother at the Doctor Aurelio Valdivieso General Hospital in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. Their two-year-old sister, also said to have been bitten by the same mammal in the back, was released after nine days of treatment. The children’s grandfather had taken them to hospital following the bite drama.
Oaxaca’s Health Service said in a statement: “The eight-year-old patient from the village of Palo de Lima in the municipality of San Lorenzo Texmelucan, who was receiving medical assistance at Doctor Aurelio Valdivieso Hospital, died on Saturday January 7. She was to hospital on December 21, 2022, with health problems after being bitten by a bat and was diagnosed as being in a serious state of health by admitted experts who evaluated her.
“During her stay in the medical center a group of multidisciplinary specialists were keeping a close eye on her evolution. However she suffered irreparable damage to her heath which resulted in her tragic death.
Regional officials have linked their family’s failure to seek medical attention earlier to their poverty and ignorance of how to resolve the situation. The deaths led to criticism of the precarious health system operating in some isolated parts of Mexico.
