French retiree dies from extremely rare bat virus

A French retiree died of an extremely rare type of rabies said to have contracted from the bats that lived in his attic.

The National Rabies Reference Center confirmed that the man, who was 60 years old, had died in Limoges, France.

He was transferred to Limoges University Hospital in August 2019, where doctors said they believed a bat that was nesting in the attic had bitten or scratched him.

The man tragically died in hospital, with doctors at the time reporting that the official cause of his death was encephalitis, but medical experts said the cause was unknown.

Since the original was not explained, the samples were sent to the Parisian Necker Hospital and the Institut Pasteur, with the aim of determining the causes of encephalitis.

Analysis showed that he had contracted the Lysa virus, the European bat virus type 1 (EBLV-1), in bats and was retrospectively diagnosed about a year after his death.

According to researcher Laurent Dashi from the Pasteur Institute, this is the first case of EBLV-1 discovered in mainland France, and he said: “35 years have passed since the last death of this type in the world. In France, it is already the first of its type”.

Dashi, vice president of the National Rabies Center at the Pasteur Institute, says there was a similar death in Russia in 1985, and two other deaths related to another type of EBLV-2, in Finland in 1985 and one in Scotland in 2002.

The researcher points out that in France, rabies has been officially eradicated since 2001.

“The last case listed in France, related to flying animals, dates back to 1998,” he said.

Source: Daily Star