Health officials say a bat on a flight from Wisconsin to Atlanta last week has sparked a national search for passengers to protect them against possible rabies.
Officials don’t know if the bat had rabies. It escaped. But they want to alert passengers of the risk just in case. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it is trying to reach all 50 people who flew on Delta flight 5121, which departed from Madison, Wis., to Atlanta at 6:45 a.m. on Aug. 5.
If the animal was rabid, people could catch rabies from a bite or exposure to the bat’s saliva.
CDC officials asked anyone on the flight to call 1-866-613-2683. The airline didn’t retain the records for all the passengers.
The jet was in the air when the winged animal emerged and a passenger shot a video. Operators of the flight said it could have been a bird. But CDC says its rabies expert believes from the video that it was a bat.
Source: Associated Press
I saw this on the news last night after you posted. Surprised they did not keep the passenger list for at least a few weeks.
Cheryl, I thought the same thing! Very surprised with that information. I’ve flown Delta on those little planes from MI to Philly so far no problems. I did encounter a mouse once on a flight to FL and we had to deplane wait 3 hours while they tried to catch the mouse. Well that didn’t happen! Eventually got shuffled to another terminal to a new plane. Instead of landing late morning we finally got to our hotel around 5:00. The joys of flying.
Wow. You’re right, the “joys”.
Wow, don’t know what is crazier. That they don’t have record of who was on the flight or that there was a BAT on the plane and no one reported it during the flight!!!