School's pet bat tests positive for rabies
Pastor Dale Morgan
School's pet bat tests positive for rabies*
The Associated Press
RIVERTON, Wyo. — Catching a bat in a school basement and keeping it as a
classroom pet is a great way to learn — about rabies.
Two staff members at Trinity Lutheran School are getting a weekslong
series of rabies shots after a bat kept in a locked terrarium tested
positive for the disease.
On May 9, seventh- and eighth-grade teacher Steve Coniglio used a stick
and a bucket to capture the bat, which died two days later.
The bat had been displayed in classrooms and students gave it crickets,
but Susan Tucker, head teacher at the central Wyoming school, said
Coniglio made sure students did not handle the animal.
State and county health officials on Tuesday interviewed all 95 staff
members and students at the school and decided that Coniglio and a
teaching assistant who cleaned the cage after the bat died needed to be
treated as a precaution, said Marty Stensaas, manager for Fremont County
Public Health Nursing.
Vaccine was also available in case parents wanted their children to get
the roughly $3,500 series of shots.
Rabies is a viral disease most often transmitted through the bite of an
infected animal. It attacks the central nervous system and, if
untreated, can lead to anxiety, confusion, paralysis, hypersalivation,
difficulty swallowing and fear of water. Death usually occurs within a
week after symptoms begin.
The disease has been discovered in skunks, raccoons and a horse in
Fremont County over the past few years.