Health officials are working to alert hundreds of people in dozens of states and several countries who may have been exposed to rabies in bat-infested cabins in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park over the past few months.
As of Friday, none of the bats found in some of the eight linked cabins at Jackson Lake Lodge had tested positive for rabies.
But the handful of dead bats found and sent to the Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory in Laramie for testing were probably only a small sample of the likely dozens that colonized the attic above the row of cabins, Wyoming State Health Officer Dr. Alexia Harrist said.
It might not be airborne. I read a paper years ago but can’t find it that a person who was in a cave known for a large bat population (I can’t remember of they were some kind of researcher or cave explorer) and they contracted rabies even though the were never bitten. They medical people figured the person could only have gotten infected via airborne particles from guano or bat urine, but it is the rare exception of that happening as the virus does not survive well at all outside the body.