The man developed a fever of 101.1 and had respiratory problems, then his pupils became fixed and dilated, his white cell count jumped and an EEG showed encephalitis. After doctors made a definitive diagnosis of rabies, the man died.
An editorial accompanying the report notes that although this is the first case of human rabies in the United States linked with a vampire bat, bat rabies viruses have been associated with most of the human rabies cases acquired in the United States for the past 20 years.