Queensland health officials are concerned four children may have been exposed to bat-borne lyssavirus. They were seen playing with a flying fox at Queens Park in Ipswich west of Brisbane last Saturday. Recent tests conducted in the area suggest the virus which is similar to rabies may be present.
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TVTranscript
00:00 It's very important that parents don't wait for symptoms but that they reach out early
00:05 and we're able to support them and support their children in being able to see if they've
00:10 been exposed to the virus.
00:12 So we don't want to cause panic but it is really important that we identify these children
00:15 and we hope that family and friends can spread the message and try and help us as we do that.
00:20 This is very similar virus to the rabies virus and the symptoms are the same.
00:25 Now even though we only find this virus in about 1% of bats, in bats that are behaving
00:33 abnormally this can be up to 30%.
00:37 Now we do know that this bat was on the ground, it was on its tummy and it was struggling
00:43 to move.
00:44 So this is abnormal behaviour.
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