Bat testing up 4x

In the wake of a Humble teen's death from rabies after a bat bite, bat rabies testing in Harris County has increased 400 percent — but it's not clear whether that's because there are more suspicious bats or because people are starting to notice them. Though local health officials said they don't need to test every bat that's found on the ground, they are interested in bats that have had contact with humans or animals. But they're still getting far more bat-related calls than usual: “We normally pick up about 20 bats a week. We are now testing about 80 bats a week,” Kathy Barton of the Houston dealth department told KHOU.

Increased local bat activity is probably the result of bats migrating through the area. In terms of infected bats, the amount of the total bat population with rabies is holding steady at about 0.5 percent (around 5 percent of bats submitted for testing are found to be rabid). Meanwhile, there's been another report of a possible bat bite in north Houston. Samantha Buyckes said a bat bit her while she was visiting a friend's apartment; she's been started on rabies vaccine, just in case.

The number of infected bats is holding steady from previous years at about 5 percent