School officials for the Princeton Public Schools learned
yesterday that a bat that was previously removed from the school
playground by animal control has tested positive for rabies.
Parents have been asked to speak to their children to determine
whether they have come in direct contact with the bat at any
time. If parents suspect that a child has come in contact with
the bat, they should call the child’s doctor, the Princeton
Health Department at (609) 497-7608 and Animal Control Officer
Mark Johnson at (609) 924-2728. Some tips and information from
the state Department of Health: Rabies in humans is rare in the
USA, with 1-2 human cases reported per year. Bats are the most
common source of human rabies. Bats have increasingly been
implicated in the transmission of rabies to humans. Among the 19
naturally occurring cases of rabies in humans from 1997-2006, 17
(90%) were associated with bats. Three of the 17 cases were
bitten by a bat, 11 either handled or had direct contact with
bats but had no known bites