At the time of the victim’s death, the doctors were not able to pinpoint the cause as rabies. This case displayed a 15-day incubation period, which was dramatically shorter than the average 85-day incubation period noted for other human rabies cases in U.S. This case represents the first case of human rabies in U.S. linked to vampire bats. In Latin America, vampire bats represent the number one cause of human rabies in the last 10 years.
A Mexican teen became the first person in the United States to die from a vampire bat after he contracted rabies from the bite.
"This case represents the first reported human death from a vampire bat rabies virus variant in the United States," said the CDC and Prevention in its Morbidity and Mortality weekly report.
Postmortem test on the teen's brain tissue confirmed "the variant to be a vampire bat rabies virus variant," the CDC said.
"Expansion of vampire bats into the United States likely would lead to increased bat exposures to both humans and animals (including domestic livestock and wildlife species) and substantially alter rabies virus dynamics and ecology in the southern United States," the health agency warned.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed this week that a vampire bat bite was the direct cause of the 2010 death of a 19-year-old man.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the man from Michoacan, Mexico was bitten by a vampire bat on his heel during his sleep. Although contracting rabies from bats is not uncommon in the U.S., this particular case was the very first related to a vampire bat in the country. There is concern that this species of bat is starting to migrate from Latin America into the U.S. Vampire bats are the number one cause of human rabies cases in Latin America, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Vampire bats can also carry other infectious diseases.
The virus spreads quickly one an animal bites a victim.