The State : Boy, 13, Dies of Rabies in S.F.

A 13-year-old boy has died of rabies, San Francisco’s first victim of the rare disease in nearly half a century, health officials said. Michael Ancheta died on Dec. 15, but was not diagnosed as having rabies until several days later, said Dr. Frances Taylor, head of the city Health Department’s Bureau of Communicable Disease Control. The source of the bite that caused the rabies has not been determined, Taylor said. Health officials believe the most likely source was bats, since Michael had gone on a camping trip in Sonoma County about a month before he fell ill. Taylor said the last fatal human case of rabies in San Francisco was in 1940.