Hundreds Get Rabies Warning After Stay in National Park

Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people in dozens of states and several countries who may have been exposed to rabies in bat-infested cabins in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park over the past few months. As of Friday, none of the bats found in some of the eight linked cabins at Jackson Lake Lodge had tested positive for rabies, per the AP. But the handful of dead bats found and sent to the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory in Laramie for testing were probably only a small sample of the likely dozens that colonized the attic above the row of cabins, said Wyoming State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist.

Other bats weren't killed but got shooed out through cabin doors and windows. Health officials thus deemed it better safe than sorry to alert everybody who has stayed in the cabins recently that they might have been exposed by being bitten or scratched. Especially when people are sleeping, a bat bite or scratch can go unseen and unnoticed. "What we're really concerned about is people who saw bats in their rooms and people who might have had direct contact with a bat," Harrist said. The cabins have been unoccupied, with no plans to reopen, since concessionaire Grand Teton Lodge Company discovered the bat problem July 27.

Bats are a frequent vector of the rabies virus. Once symptoms occur—muscle aches, vomiting, itching, to name a few—rabies is almost always fatal in humans. The good news is that a five-shot prophylactic regimen over a two-week period soon after exposure is highly effective in preventing illness. The cabins opened for the summer season in May after being vacant over the winter. Based on the roughly 250 reservations through late July, health officials estimated that up to 500 people had stayed in the cabins. They were trying to reach people in 38 states and seven countries.

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Health officials were recommending prophylactic shots for people who fit certain criteria, such as deep sleepers who found a bat in their room, and children too young to say that they had seen a bat. Others who have not been alerted yet but stayed in cabins 516, 518, 520, 522, 524, 526, 528, and 530 this year should tell health officials or a doctor immediately, Harrist said.