A dead bat that a cat brought into a Tisbury home last month tested positive for rabies, according to town health officials. 

This is the first documented rabies case on the Vineyard since 2019 and only the second going back to when testing began in 1985. Health officials said there is little cause for concern as it appears to be an isolated incident. 

“If we find a series of tests that come back positive we will start to monitor the situation,” Drew Belsky, Tisbury health agent, told the Gazette this week. 

The bat was discovered by the homeowners in mid-July, according to Heather Maciel, the Tisbury animal control officer. 

The cat that found the bat, as well as two other cats living at the home, were all put into a 45-day quarantine and seem to be doing fine, she said. The homeowners also took precautionary doses of the rabies vaccine, health officials said.

Tisbury regularly sends off about six bats a year to the Massachusetts state public health laboratory for testing. After this bat was found to test positive, two more dead bats were found and tested. Both of the latter bats tested negative. 

Rabies is a viral disease that is deadly if people don’t receive medical care before symptoms start. It primarily is spread through bites or scratches from an infected animal.

Bats are one of the main animals that can catch and pass on rabies, along with skunks, raccoons and foxes.

Health officials encourage people to see a doctor if they come into contact with a bat because bat bites or scratches can be tiny and hard to detect. 

The bat that tested positive was a brown bat, according to Ms. Maciel, the same species that tested positive in 2019 in Tisbury.