Doctors described the case after the child woke with a bat on his face and later developed fatal symptoms.
TORONTO, Ontario — An 11-year-old Ontario boy died of rabies after waking with a bat on his nose and mouth during a cottage visit in northern Ontario, according to a medical case report published in late June.
The case has drawn attention because the child had no visible bite or scratch after the bat encounter. His family released the animal and did not seek immediate medical care. Nineteen days later, the boy developed symptoms that doctors later linked to rabies, a virus that is almost always fatal once illness begins.
The boy had been sleeping at a cottage in northern Ontario during the summer of 2024 when he woke and found the bat lying across his nose and mouth. He swatted it away, and his father caught the bat in a cooking pot before releasing it outside. Doctors wrote that the family saw no marks on the boy’s face and did not think the bat had acted strangely. Because of that, they did not contact health officials or take the child for treatment after the exposure.
About 19 days later, the boy began showing signs of illness. Doctors said he developed right-sided facial tingling and numbness, facial swelling, vomiting and trouble swallowing. He was first treated for a possible viral cause of facial weakness, but his symptoms worsened. After he was admitted to an Ontario hospital, testing confirmed rabies. The medical team identified a bat rabies virus variant, linking the infection to the earlier cottage encounter.
The boy’s condition declined quickly after he was hospitalized. Doctors reported that he developed severe neurological problems, autonomic dysfunction and pneumonia while on a ventilator. By the fifth day of admission, his brainstem reflexes were gone. Life-sustaining treatment was withdrawn on the 17th day of admission, and he died with his family at his bedside, the report said.
Human rabies is extremely rare in Canada. Doctors said only 28 human cases had been reported in the country since 1924. The boy’s death was the first locally acquired human rabies case reported in Ontario since 1967. Bats remain an important source of rabies exposure in North America because their bites can be small and difficult to notice, especially when a person is asleep or a child cannot clearly describe what happened.
The authors of the case report said direct contact between a person and a bat should be discussed with public health officials, even when no wound is seen. Rabies can be prevented after exposure with prompt treatment before symptoms start. Once symptoms appear, doctors said there are no proven treatments that reliably stop the disease. In this case, the medical team considered additional options, but they were not pursued because of limited evidence, limited availability and the boy’s rapid decline.
The child was not publicly identified in the report. The case was published to document the timeline and the difficulty of recognizing bat exposure when there is no obvious injury. Doctors said the family did not know the encounter could carry a serious risk. The report described the death as a rare but preventable tragedy and said awareness of bat-related rabies exposure remains important during summer travel and cottage stays.
The case remains a medical warning tied to a 2024 death, not a newly reported exposure. The next milestone is continued public health messaging as doctors and health agencies review the report during the 2026 summer season.
Author note: Last updated July 6, 2026.