Tourist bitten by bat feared to have fatal virus

An Australian woman fears she has a fatal virus after getting bitten on the head by a bat while on vacation.

“I didn’t want to believe a bat had bitten me,” Sandi Galloway, told the Cairns Post of the attack, which occurred while she and her husband Gordon were sightseeing in Cairns, Queensland.

The couple was strolling back to their hotel at around 11 p.m. after having coffee with friends when all of sudden Galloway felt something flapping close to her

“I felt something flying over my head,” said the horrified Aussie, recounting the “Dracula”-evoking encounter.

As she is partially blind, Galloway flicked her hand up to prevent the unknown critter from alighting on her.

That’s when the unthinkable occurred: “Next thing, I felt this sting, like two pinpricks on my forehead,” recalled the grandmother, who initially refused to accept that she’d been bitten by a bat despite her partner telling her that’s what had transpired.

She’d been specifically bitten by a flying fox, the largest species of bats with a wingspan of up to 5 feet — larger than a red-tailed hawk.

Nonetheless, Galloway said she convinced herself it “was probably a spider” even though deep down she knew this wasn’t so.

She didn’t want to face the reality that she’d been attacked by a flying rodent.

As Galloway didn’t display any symptoms aside from fatigue and loss of appetite, the senior forgot about the ordeal until she returned home and had a talk with her daughter.

“I didn’t want to look stupid going to a doctor about the bite because I thought this doesn’t happen in real life,” rationalized the gran. “Then I told my daughter and she told me I could get rabies from it and could die.”

While Australian bats don’t carry rabies, they can transmit Lyssavirus, which attacks the nervous system and has had a 100% mortality rate in Australia.

Since the virus’ identification in 1996, there have been only three cases of infection in humans, all of whom had died “as a result of ABLV infection after being bitten or scratched by bats,” New South Wales Health reported.

All three cases were in Queensland while one involved an eight-year-old boy.

Alarmed, Galloway booked an appointment with her physician, whereupon she was eventually referred to an infectious disease expert, who had to fly the vaccines in from Canberra.

Galloway reportedly received five injections on Wednesday and will require three more shots over the coming three weeks.

“If I miss an injection, I have to start the whole process again,” lamented Galloway, who had to postpone a cancer scan due to the ordeal.

“I have to reschedule my MRI because I had a brain tumor and I go for yearly checkups to make sure it’s dormant, but I can’t do the MRI while taking this course of treatment,” she said.

In light of the frightening saga, Galloway vows never to return to Cairns unless its flying foxes are relocated and is calling on the local government to make this happen.

“It would be the best thing for Cairns to remove the bats from the city and relocate them to an area that’s not so crowded,” she declared.

Cairns Regional Council, which has been waging an ongoing battle with the flying fruit-eaters, says it is currently mulling the appropriate course of action following the “rare yet alarming incident.”

“If council is made aware of a significant flying-fox roost that may cause conflict between the people and flying foxes, signage will be posted around the site to make the community aware,” they pledged.

Down Under isn’t the only place where these winged mammals are spreading disease. A 2019 study found that bats and other wild animals are the leading cause of rabies in the US ahead of dogs.

More infamously, bats have been blamed for originating the virus responsible for the global COVID-19 pandemic, although this theory is disputed.