Santiago Pascual-Meagher
Farmers Forum
BRANTFORD — The death of an 11-year-old boy from Brantford, Ontario who died of rabies, may lead some farmers to consider getting the pre-exposure preventative rabies vaccine.
The Canadian Medical Association Journal (June 29, 2026 edition) reported new details of the case of the boy who contracted rabies while staying at a family cottage near Sudbury in Northern Ontario in the summer of 2024, where a bat was on his face.
According to the report, the boy swatted the bat away and his father captured it in a cooking pot before releasing it outside. Because the child had no visible bite marks or scratches his family did not seek medical attention.
Almost three weeks later, the boy developed tingling, numbness, and swelling on the right side of his face. He was initially treated for suspected Bell’s palsy and later herpes-related infections as his condition rapidly deteriorated. Within days, he developed difficulty swallowing, confusion, hallucinations and multiple neurological deficits before being admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit.
Doctors suspected rabies and laboratory testing later confirmed infection with a bat rabies virus variant. Despite intensive medical care, the boy died 17 days after being admitted to hospital.
According to the provincial government website, approximately 5 % of bats submitted for testing turn out to be positive for rabies. However, Haldimand-Norfolk Medical Officer of Health Dr. Malcolm Lock recently reported that the figure in his Southwestern Ontario jurisdiction is usually 10 % but hit 16 % in 2024.
The Ontario boy’s death was the province’s first human rabies case since 1967 and the first reported human rabies death in Canada since a British Columbia man died following bat exposure in 2019, according to the CBC.
In Canada, only 28 human cases have been reported since 1924 according to the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association.
Farmers are not considered to be at high risk. However, Leeds & Grenville Health Unit inspector Andrew Dunn says that “nothing is stopping a farmer from requesting pre-exposure rabies vaccination if they wished to have it.”
Even cattle have been known to become infected. There were seven bovine rabies cases in Ontario cattle between 2015 and 2018.
The way rabies enters the body is typically through saliva from an infected animal. It then travels along the nerves to the brain, causing severe neurological illness that is almost always fatal once symptoms begin.
“If anyone in Ontario has direct physical contact with a bat, even if there is no visible bite or scratch, or if they have been bitten or exposed to saliva or infectious tissues from another animal species, they should seek immediate medical attention,” Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Kieran Moore warned in a September statement.
The virus usually has an incubation period lasting several weeks, providing a critical window during which post-exposure prophylaxis, consisting of rabies vaccines and rabies immune globulin, can prevent infection.
Dr. Brian Hummel, a pediatric infectious disease physician at McMaster Children’s Hospital, told the CBC “If you get symptomatic rabies infection, it is near universally fatal. But if you get the prevention before symptoms develop, it is near universally successful.”
Bats are the most commonly infected animal in the environment. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed 49 rabies-infected bats in Ontario last year, out of 56 total animal cases. Only one was a domestic animal, a cat. Animals such as skunks, raccoons and foxes can also carry the virus.
