Ontario boy dies of rabies after bat lands on his face

A bat landed on an 11-year-old boy’s nose and mouth while he slept at a northern Ontario cottage, and 19 days later the exposure became a fatal rabies case.

The child had no history of travel outside Canada and, at first, his family did not seek medical care because the bat did not seem erratic and there were no obvious wounds. Rabies can spread through saliva exposed to the eyes, nose, mouth or an open wound, and scratches or bites from bats can be so small they are easy to miss. Any direct human contact with a bat should be treated as high risk and discussed immediately with public health officials, even if the animal appears healthy.

The boy’s symptoms began with tingling and numbness on the right side of his face, facial swelling and loss of appetite. He was first treated for presumed herpes gingivostomatitis and later Bell palsy and severe herpes gingivostomatitis before the true cause became clear. He returned to hospital with painful swallowing, vomiting, weakness, slurred speech, fever, confusion and hallucinations, then was placed on a ventilator in the pediatric intensive care unit. A PCR test later confirmed rabies, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency identified a bat-rabies variant. He died on the 17th day of hospitalization.

The bat was no longer available for immediate diagnostic testing because the boy’s father caught it in a cooking pot and released it outside after the child swatted it away. Public health was notified the day after the first emergency department visit because of the bat exposure, but the patient was still discharged home before rabies was recognized.

Canada’s federal surveillance system counts 28 human rabies cases reported since 1924, and all have been fatal. Ontario’s 2024 case was the province’s first locally acquired human rabies infection since 1967. The country’s last human rabies case from a non-flying animal was also in 1967. CFIA’s 2026 tracker lists 18 rabid bats in Canada through June, including nine in Ontario, out of 79 rabies-positive animals overall.