08-12-2011, 05:12 PM
A Mexican teen became the first person in the United States to die from a vampire bat -- and the Centers for Disease Control warned that the bats may be spreading in the country.
The 19-year-old migrant worker contracted rabies from a bite on his heel from the blood sucker on July 15th, 2010. He was bitten in Michoacan, Mexico, 10 days before he left for the United States to work on a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) only just confirmed on Friday, Aug. 12, that his death was the first such case in the U.S.
"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.
The teenager became ill two weeks after the bite, having not received a rabies vaccination. He had a particularly aggressive case of the disease with an incubation period of 15 days as opposed to the average 85 days seen in other human rabies cases in the United States.
He sought medical attention for fatigue, shoulder pain, a dropping left eye and numbness of the left hand. He also developed respiratory distress and a 101.1-degree fever, according the the CDC's report.
![[Image: vamp.JPG]](http://a57.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/Scitech/660/371/vamp.JPG)
The 19-year-old migrant worker contracted rabies from a bite on his heel from the blood sucker on July 15th, 2010. He was bitten in Michoacan, Mexico, 10 days before he left for the United States to work on a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) only just confirmed on Friday, Aug. 12, that his death was the first such case in the U.S.
"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.
The teenager became ill two weeks after the bite, having not received a rabies vaccination. He had a particularly aggressive case of the disease with an incubation period of 15 days as opposed to the average 85 days seen in other human rabies cases in the United States.
He sought medical attention for fatigue, shoulder pain, a dropping left eye and numbness of the left hand. He also developed respiratory distress and a 101.1-degree fever, according the the CDC's report.