Hundreds may have been exposed to rage in battles infested with bats in the Grand Teton National Park

Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people to dozens of states and several countries that may have been exposed to rabies in battles of bats in the Wyoming Grand Teton National Park in recent months.

On Friday, none of the bats found in some of the eight bound cabins of Jackson Lake Lodge had been tested positive for rabies.

But the handful of dead bats found and sent to the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory at Laramie for tests were probably only a small sample of the probable dozens who colonized the attic above the row of cabins, said Dr. Alexia Harrist, head of the health of the state of Wyoming.

Other bats were not killed but were hunted through the cabin doors and windows. Meanwhile, the vast majority has never fought the attic in living spaces.

Health officials considered him better safely than sorry to alert all those who recently stayed in the cabins they could have been exposed by being bitten or striped. Especially when people sleep, a bat bit or a scratch can become invisible and unnoticed.

“What really worries us are people who saw bats in their room and people who could have had direct contact with a bat,” said Harrist on Friday.

The cabins were unoccupied, without plans to reopen, because the company of the Grand Teton Lodge concession discovered the problem of the bat on July 27.

Bats are a frequent vector of the rabies virus. Once the symptoms occur – muscle ailments, vomiting, itching, to name only a few – rabies is almost always fatal in humans.

The good news is a prophylactic diet with five strokes over a period of two weeks shortly after the very effective exposure to prevent the disease, noted Harrist.

The cabins opened for the summer season in May after being vacant in winter. Based on the 250 reservations of about July, health officials estimated that up to 500 people had stayed in the cabins.

They were trying to reach people in 38 states and seven countries through the health agencies of these states and, in the case of foreign visitors, the American centers of control and prevention of diseases.

Others who have not yet been alerted but have remained in the cabins 516, 518, 520, 522, 524, 526, 528 and 530 this year should immediately say health officials or a doctor, said Harrist.

Health managers recommended prophylactic photos for people who meet certain criteria, such as deep sleepers who found a bat in their room and children too young to say that they had seen a bat.

The Wyoming Ministry of Health had no continuous concern about the safety of visitors in the Jackson Lake Lodge region. This includes a symposium of economic policy of the federal reserve from August 21 to 23 which takes place at the Jackson Lake Lodge every summer.

“The Lodge Society has done a fantastic job to do its reasonable diligence to ensure that all those who arrive for this, and for all the other visits this year, will be as safe as possible,” said Emily Curren, veterinarian of Wyoming public health.

“Three or four” dead bats of the cabins were tested negative and the one that was mutilated did not have enough brain fabric to be testable, said Curren.

All were brown bats, which come in two species: “Little” and “Big”, with the largest more than twice as large. The officials did not know what species were, but the two are common in Wyoming.

They generally live in colonies of 30 to 100 people, said Curren.

“It’s a lot of bats in which we cannot exclude a risk that rabies be,” said Curren. “There is no way for us to know with certainty of each bat that has entered these rooms.”

It is not planned to exterminate bats, said Emily Davis, spokesperson for the Grand Teton National Park. The devices adapted to the building prevented bats from returning after flying in search of insects to eat, they said.