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Article: Bats helpful and harmful to our health.
- Article from:
- The Boston Herald
- Article date:
- June 14, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Boston Herald. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In scenes worthy of a Bela Lugosi movie, young bats are invading local homes as the flying creatures search the night skies for insects to eat.
But unlike their silver-screen cousins, these bats are nothing to laugh about with the spread of rabies in recent years on the East Coast.
Some 95 percent of people infected over the past nine years with the form of rabies normally carried by bats were unaware they'd been bitten or scratched, according to federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics.
"Most of the cases of rabies that have occurred in humans -- a large majority of them -- have been in people that have been infected by a ...