A person dies of rabies in Guyana, a first in 16 years

Three patients died at the Cayenne hospital, at least one of whom was infected with rabies, the first documented case in sixteen years, the prefecture and the ARS of Guyana said on Thursday. The three patients had been admitted to the intensive care unit between February 17 and March 1, “from the Eau Claire gold mining site”, in the south of Guyana.

The press release does not specify the dates of the deaths and analyzes are still underway to determine the causes of the death of the two other people. Until now, the only documented case of rabies in Guyana dates back to 2008, recalled Anne Lavergne, head of the virus/host interactions laboratory at the Pasteur Institute. “The main reservoir of rabies in South America is the vampire bats Desmodus rotundus,” she explained to AFP.

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This virus is lethal to all species, including humans, except for these bats. How the victim was contaminated is not yet known, Anne Lavergne said, adding that it is possible that "an entire colony of bats was infected over a short period of time, leading to a higher probability of encounters." on a localized human population.

Health authorities are tracing people likely to have come into contact with the patient and a public health mission will go to the Eau Claire site, which was illegal, to assess the situation, according to the prefecture and the ARS.