A child from the Brantford-Brant region who contracted rabies from exposure to a rabid bat in Northeastern Ontario in early September has died.

Brant County Health Unit officials say that the exposure to the viral infection was in the Gowganda area in the Timiskaming District northeast of Sudbury.

It was reported that the child woke to find a bat in the room the child was sleeping in.

“The parents looked at the child, didn’t see any signs of a bite or scratches or saliva and didn’t seek getting the rabies vaccine,” a medical officer for the Haldimand-Norfolk Health Unit said on Oct. 2.

The child was hospitalized in the first week September in Hamilton and died two weeks later.

It is the first case of human rabies in Ontario since 1967. There have been 26 such cases in Canada since 1924.

Dr. Rebecca Comley, Medical Officer of Health for Brant County Health Unit,  said:

“Our heartfelt thoughts are with this individual and their loved ones during this incredibly difficult time. Rabies, though rare, is a serious virus in humans. If you have direct contact with any animal known to carry rabies, you should seek immediate medical attention.”

Rabies causes brain and spinal cord inflammation and is typically spread to humans through direct contact with saliva or mucous of an infected animal, most often from a bite or scratch.

Bats, skunks, foxes and raccoons are the most common animals to have rabies in Canada.

Health officials say that the standard anti-rabies treatment, which includes receiving antibodies and getting a four-dose rabies vaccine, is a very effective way to prevent the virus from developing.

However, once the virus infects the central nervous system and clinical symptoms begin to show, the infection is fatal.