My own personal viewpoint is reflect on the element and duration of exposure and the likelihood of obtaining a bite from said bat?

In essence we have 64 Million people in UK and 2 fatalities from bat bites in 15 years?  Extreme control to cull the bat species affected.  BAI for me.

Waz

Won't be a problem after Brexit as we can impose strict border controls on the little blighters !  :-)

As a society we accept significantly higher fatality incidence from other factors.

People do choose to drive though but we have had no choice in the decision to allow rabid bat populations to continue to exist.  The Bat Preservation Trust seems to be the advising body to gov. and they might be a bit biased. I presume there is a level of risk where the options change.

Perhaps BRAKE should get some assistance from the Bat Preservationists?

https://www.shponline.co.uk/carnage-road-safety-stalls-4-increase-deaths/?cid=incon_ema_newsletter&cid=%3FCID%3Dema-Newsletter_SHP%20Plus%20Weekly-29th%20September%202017-Finance%2FInsurance%20%2F%20Legal%20Services-

I obviously have too much spare time – but a welcome break from working on a Friday afternoon.

Preserve the bats! -  the risk is insignificant.  Culling the local population probably wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

The most recent case of rabies in a bat in Great Britain was in September 2017.  This brings the total to 14 cases in over 15,000 tests since 1986.

I suggest that the prevalence of rabies in the UK bat population is so low, (<0.1%) that culling a local population will not have any significant effect on the overall risk to humans.  Bat handlers should of course take precautions to prevent being bitten or otherwise coming into contact with bat saliva etc.

Perhaps of greater concern are wild deer.  Deer cause numerous road traffic accidents each year.  The AA website has a page on deer collisions and suggests deer cause 400 injuries per year.  Although there are no accurate figures for road deaths caused by deer, the deer collisions project (yes there is a website - http://www.deercollisions.co.uk ) reports:

“   (deer) pose a safety hazard to road users, and lead to substantial damage to cars and numerous human injuries as well as a number of human fatalities in most years.”

This statement is apparently based on the number of collisions per year in the UK and comparison with German data on fatal injuries from deer collisions.

So, based on that information, clearly deer are deadlier than bats. 

DEFRA’s guidance (Rabies Disease Control Strategy 2011) considers and dismisses the risk of infection from or transmission of the disease by bats.  The guidance states: -

“European bat lyssavirus (EBLV) 2 has been detected at a low prevalence in Daubenton’s bats in the UK.”

“Bat Lyssaviruses: European Bat Lyssaviruses have, very occasionally, been confirmed in bats in the UK.  However, the small likelihood of contact between people and bats (apart from bat handlers) make the human risk from this disease negligible.  There are no known incidences of bat lyssaviruses becoming established in other, more risk-associated animal populations.”

“Bats: The risk of rabies passing between other mammals and bats is extremely low. Bat populations would continue to be monitored by a passive surveillance programme during a rabies outbreak”.

The gov.uk website https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rabies-in-bats updated last week also states the risk is very low.

While the death of an individual would indeed be tragic, the risk doesn't have to be reduced to zero - as we all know 'SRAIRP' is the legal test.

In numbers deaths of 1x10^-6 per annum is considered to be Broadley Acceptable according to R2P2. So the estimate of death to a bat handler is???

Originally Posted by: boblewis

 culling a local population is likely ultimately to the "dying out" of the virus

Culling the locals seems a bit drastic, but I guess if there is no-one left for the bats to bite, it would work.

Perhaps if we leave them alone they would respond in kind. 

Another thing to consider is can they spread rabies to other wildlife and that in turn becomes more of a problem in future.

Perhaps culling a few may be the best way to go. However, I’m not into bats or rabies as such, but is there a cure / vaccine we could give to the bats rather than the easy option of kill first ask questions later.

But perhaps other humas are the biggest risk to humans!!! :-)