By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

An unidentified staff member at Cedar Creek Elementary School found a live bat that later tested positive for rabies outside the school gym at 3301 Pinnacle Road on May 14 at 8:40 a.m. The bat was isolated immediately by a school employee and turned over to Austin Animal Control, according to school administrators.
The bat tested positive for rabies at the Texas Department of State Health Services, according to a district e-mail released Monday. Administrators at Cedar Creek said they know of no exposure of children, parents or staff members to the infected bat found at the edge of the elementary school basketball court.
Beverlee Nix of the TDSHS said that cases of animals found with rabies are so endemic in Travis County, the state makes no effort to keep information by regions within the county, so it is not known how many rabid bats have been found within Westlake in recent years. In 2008, 197 animals with rabies were found in Travis County, three skunks and 194 bats. That number was up from the number of rabid animals found in the county in 2007, 136. All of the cases were bats.
So far this year, 16 cases of animals with rabies have been reported in Travis County, again all bats.
“This in no way tells us how prevalent rabies is in the area,” Nix said.
Travis County led the state with the number of rabid bat reports in both 2007 and 2008. Nix said rabies is prevalent in Travis County because bats are prevalent in Travis County.
“Central Texas and the Hill Country are perfect habitats for bats,” she said.
Although the vast majority of bats in the area do not carry rabies, Nix said, parents should teach their young children never to handle any animal, even a domestic animal, with which they are not familiar.
“They may be cute, but petting them is just not worth the risk,” she said.
Once an animal is dead, Nix said it poses no risk of rabies infection.
“It has to be alive to inflict a wound that can be loaded with its saliva,” she said.
The peak time for reports of dead bats and, therefore, for rabid bat detection is in the fall at the start of school, Nix said, because that is the time the animals migrate south. She said bats fall out of the air near schools throughout the county. The problem has become so common, school nurses and administrators are trained in the proper procedure for isolating and reporting suspicious animals that could carry rabies.
Nix said any time there is a chance someone has been exposed to a live bat or a bat has been in a house or a public premises, authorities should be contacted to capture the animal and test it for rabies. To report a suspicious animal or pet, Travis County officials ask residents to phone 3-1-1.
For more information on bats and rabies in Texas, visit TexasZoonosis.org or contact the City of Austin Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance office at 972-5555.