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News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Everything we know about Lyssavirus after man dies in state first
A northern NSW man has died after being bitten by a bat, in the first confirmed case of Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV) in NSW. The man, in his 50s, was bitten by a bat several months ago and had been in a critical condition in hospital, but on Thursday NSW Health confirmed he had died. 'We express our sincere condolences to the man's family and friends for their tragic loss,' NSW Health said in a statement. The case marks the fourth ever documented of ABLV, all have been fatal. What is Lyssavirus? 'ABLV is a virus that circulates naturally in Australian bats that is very closely related to rabies,' said veterinarian and wildlife disease expert Dr Alison Peel. 'To infect a human, the virus needs to pass from the bat's saliva into a wound in the skin. For example, that can happen if an infected bat scratches or bites you, or if their saliva comes into contact with an existing break in your skin. 'You cannot contract the virus just by being near flying foxes.' Once infected the victim will experience a latency period where they are asymptomatic and appear healthy, this period may stretch from weeks to possibly years until symptoms begin to appear. 'Once symptomatic, ABLV infection has a 100 per cent fatality rate with no effective treatment available,' said molecular virologist professor Vinod Balasubramaniam. '(ABLV) infects peripheral nerves and progresses rapidly to the central nervous system, causing fatal acute encephalomyelitis (inflammation of the brain and spinal cord).' ABLV was first identified by the CSIRO in 1996, after a black flying fox exhibiting neurological symptoms was discovered near Ballina in northern New South Wales. Later that same year, a woman in Queensland who had recently begun working as a bat handler developed numbness and weakness in her arm, before falling into a coma and passing away. Two more fatalities occurred in 1998 and 2013, when a woman and an eight-year-old child died after being bitten or scratched by bats. Although the virus is found in Australian bats it exists in an extremely low percentage of the population. Exact numbers are difficult to determine due to its scarcity however Trish Paterson, who ran the Australian Bat Clinic and Wildlife Trauma Centre in Queensland, told the ABC less than 0.1 per cent of the Australian bat population was infected with the virus. 'The virus is present in the saliva of some Australian bats, but at very low prevalence,' said Dr Peel. 'The proportion of bats infected by the virus is normally very low – studies have looked for the virus in thousands of healthy bats and failed to find it. 'Like humans and other animals, infected bats may become sick and die, however, some bats may appear unaffected. So, you can't always tell just by looking at a bat whether it's infected or not.' What can you do to protect yourself? Experts stressed the best defence against ABLV was avoiding bats and particularly avoiding provoking them. 'This recent NSW case, the first in the state, highlights significant lessons for public health: individuals must avoid direct contact with bats,' said professor Balasubramaniam. 'Unvaccinated people should avoid handling bats in the wild, and if they encounter an injured bat they should contact their local wildlife rescue group, rather than trying to handle the animal themselves,' said director of equine infectious diseases at Melbourne University professor James Gilkerson. 'Veterinarians and wildlife carers are two groups at higher risk, and it is recommended that those people are vaccinated against rabies to protect them against ABLV infection.' Professor Balasubramaniam advised those bitten or scratched to 'seek immediate medical intervention, including thorough wound cleaning and prompt administration of rabies immunoglobulin and vaccines following any potential exposure'. 'Public health authorities must adopt a robust approach such as intensifying targeted education for high-risk groups like veterinarians and wildlife handlers, enhancing surveillance of bat populations, and investing in research for advanced vaccines and antiviral therapies. 'The (recent) incident highlights the critical need to respect ecological boundaries, promote community awareness, and ensure swift, evidence-based medical and public health responses.'
SBS Australia
4 hours ago
- SBS Australia
Inside the growing cohort of Queensland parents who never planned to homeschool
A former primary school teacher, Clarissa Valentine never planned to home-school her twin 12 year old boys. "Over Covid, a lot of things that were habitual and just part of life changed because we were locked down, and there were a lot of things that I then had never questioned that I started to question. And I am a primary school teacher, I love rules and boxes, and you do this and that. And then everything was kind of stripped back." But Melbourne's lockdowns and vaccine mandates during the height of the COVID pandemic, prompted a lifestyle change, and a move to the Sunshine Coast. "And I think moving here, starting again, with that mindset, I thought okay now's the time to, let's create an intentional life, and these are the things I'm going to put in that life. Nothing is perfect, and the education system is not perfect, but I think taking yourself out of it allows you to step back a little bit. Doing that caused me to see it wasn't ideal and I could do it differently." Clarissa is among thousands of families across the country who transitioned to homeschooling from the onset of the pandemic - some 45,000 children registered for homeschooling in Australia. But Queensland in particular saw the highest spike in numbers, a trend that has continued years after the pandemic lockdowns. Queensland's Department of Education reports a 163% increase in homeschooling from 2020 to 2024, bringing the most recently updated number of homeschooling students in Queensland to more than 11,000. Dr Rebecca English, Senior lecturer in Education at Queensland's University of Technology, says the reasons for Queensland's dramatic uptick are unclear. "I'm not really sure why it's Queensland, but Queensland has a long history of quite a fractious relationship with state schooling. And that data seemed to suggest the same things we keep seeing in research that parents feel that the school is not the appropriate environment for that young person. I think when you look at the Brisbane area and the Sunshine Coast area and you look at other elements of maybe not going along with mainstream higher rates of non vaccination in around Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. So maybe it's correlated with that." But many parents, like Sunshine Coast-based Clarissa, say parents are encouraged to make the switch thanks to a vibrant homeschooling community. "I think that once the community starts to grow a little, then other people get more confidence to join that community. If you were at home homeschooling and you didn't really know anyone, it can be really isolating. And I think that would be really hard for the parent and for the children. But if you've got other groups of people that are homeschooling, there are park, there are so many things on the Sunshine Coast in particular that you could participate in that you could be busy all day every day. And I think that brings confidence." Something parents find helpful, when the choice to homeschool is typically unplanned. Dr English says around 85% of homeschooling students are school refusers, or those who found mainstream schooling didn't work for their child - while the other 15% are ideologically opposed. "So often there is a strong correlation between the choice of homeschooling and school can't or school refusal in Australia... and I think that's something we really need to look at, how can we better meet the needs of particularly neurodiverse children in our classrooms." After a year of trying mainstream schooling, Sunshine Coast residents Danika and Joel resorted to homeschooling their eight-year-old son Ben two years ago, after his school refusal and anxiety reached a tipping point. "He was four, turning five the year that he started prep. And for him to come home in tears saying school's not for me, just him being able to communicate and articulate, that was quite overwhelming for us as parents. We thought what's happening in the school grounds that's making him feel this way? But there was no particular incidents. He just didn't feel safe and secure mentally. And he was just this little 5 year old boy whose heart had been broken, spark had been put out... and it was not the school's fault, it was just the sheer volume of everything on such a little human being." In Queensland, parents who home-school do not have to adhere to the Australian curriculum. The previous state government had sought to enforce it, sparking a campaign against the move. The Free2Homeschool campaign gathered more than 21,000 signatures and more than 2000 submissions opposing the former Queensland government's attempts to enforce the Australian curriculum on home-schoolers. Brisbane-based Patricia Fitzgerald is Campaign Manager. "The freedom that we have now is a lot of why we choose homeschooling. So if we're going to take that away, our children may as well be in school. We put up a campaign to make sure that the government heard what we needed and understood us. So a lot of it was around educating them so that we could show that that level of restriction on us was not going to help educate our children." The current Queensland government tabled new legislation in March 2025, still under review, which removed all the homeschooling reforms opposed to by stakeholders. Queensland's Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek told SBS it's a parent's right to choose the type of education that suits their family, but safety must always be a priority - adding the government are working to implement all accepted recommendations of an independent review into home schooling. A separate 2024 review by the Queensland Family and Child Commission also called for better information-sharing between government departments to ensure child safety. In a random sample of 500 home schooled students, it found 35 children were considered to be living in a high risk home environment between August 2021 and August 2023. Commissioner Luke Twyford says there needs to be greater visibility of children registered in the home education system. "So our review was very careful to try and not suggest that it is homeschooling parents that are at risk. That's absolutely not the case. What we are mostly concerned about is that the registration system in homeschooling isn't always picking up risk factors that other government departments are identifying." Experts stressing the needs of the child must always come first. "And we need to be responsive to that young person as well. So if they say, mum, dad, I really want to go back to school, or I really want to try school, then maybe we need to really look at the reasons for that young person saying they'd like to go to school." While still acknowledging the importance of alternative learning, for children like Ben. "Like normal school, I made it up to grade one and it was a bit hard for me. Some of the questions were a bit hard for me, but with homeschooling you get to solve so many things at your own pace. I am able to solve some pretty complex math questions now and I took my time." A choice these families don't take for granted.
ABC News
6 hours ago
- ABC News
Beware of dog injuries from jackets and jumpers rubbing on skin in cold weather
A South Australian vet says she has noticed a spate of dogs being rubbed raw and developing open wounds from tightly fitted jackets and jumpers during recent cold weather. Readers are advised this article includes an image of a wound some readers may find confronting. Over the past month Mount Gambier vet Teresa Priddle has seen one dog with a cut between its back legs, another with a similar injury under its front legs, and a third with an injury to its chest. She said jackets had their place for smaller dogs going outside in winter and going for walks during rainy weather. But owners needed to regularly check how well they fit, particularly focusing on too-small leg holes, ill-fitting straps and velcro rubbing against the skin. "I think the trick is to be taking the jacket on and off every day — not leaving it on 24 hours a day for days at a time," she said. "Even checking daily that it's fitting correctly and there's no rub marks. Prior to the past month, Dr Priddle said she had rarely seen the issue before. "This winter, certainly, I think feels a lot colder than the previous winter so that may be a factor," she said. University of Adelaide associate professor Susan Hazel, who specialises in research into animal welfare, behaviour and ethics, said the injury seen by Dr Priddle was "horrific" but she had not heard of similar cases. She said the market for pet-related merchandise was going up every year. "I suspect some of them [jackets and jumpers] are on platforms where they're just put out really rapidly without thinking of the welfare of the pet, that they might cut in and things," she said. Dr Hazel said to consider jackets with thicker straps so the pressure from them could be better distributed on the dog's skin. "It's not a fashion accessory. It should be something that's used to keep them dry or keep them warm," she said. She said hot weather was more of a concern for dogs wearing jackets since they could not sweat and could develop hot spots exacerbated by moisture. Leisa McKinnon's French bulldog Patrick has two jackets for walks and another two when at home. She said she made sure to choose clothes that had sleeves rather than straps, or were stretchy to prevent injuries. "Frenchies overheat pretty easily, but then they do feel the cold as well," she said. Ian Wheller's golden retriever Otis wore a denim jacket during 2 degrees Celsius weather on Wednesday. He said it was more of a fashion statement than a necessity because of his dog's thick coat. "It's got nice, big armholes for him so it's quite comfortable on him. It doesn't bother him at all," Mr Wheller said.
