Grant Bell says he will need to have more vaccines for a month after he was attacked by a flying fox. Picture: Evan Morgan Source: Townsville Bulletin
FORMER North Queensland rugby league coach Grant Bell has been given 14 injections of vaccine after a bat scratched at his eye socket, face and chin.
Mr Bell was at a children's birthday party on Friday night in the Townsville suburb of Railway East when a flying fox latched onto his face, The Townsville Bulletin reports.
"I was picking up my kids from a birthday party and I said "come on, let's go" and I don't know if that startled it, but it just dropped down," he told The Bulletin.
"It wasn't like I was standing in a colony, it just dropped down and I happened to be where it landed.
"I then shook my head and it just dropped down on to the ground," he said.
The popular ABC commentator said the tragic death last month of an eight year-old boy from the bat-borne lyssavirus convinced him to seek medical treatment for his scratches."I went up to the hospital and had it not been for that dreadfully sad situation with a child dying, I probably would have done nothing," he said.
"There's so many bats around up here, we're not necessarily aware of the potential risk, and there's a significant risk."
Mr Bell was given 14 different needles including the rabies vaccine when he sought treatment at a local hospital and will have ongoing vaccinations for a month.
Dr Lee Skerratt from James Cook University said that while bats rarely violent towards humans, anyone who has been attacked by a flying fox has a "high risk" of being infected with lyssavirus.
In the past 16 years, lyssavirus has claimed three lives in Queensland and experts say it in untreatable once it takes hold.
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