Bat-Borne Rabies in Latin America

Abstract

The situation of rabies in America is complex: rabies in dogs has decreased dramatically, but bats are increasingly recognized as natural reservoirs of other rabies variants. Here, bat species known to be rabies-positive with different antigenic variants, are summarized in relation to bat conservation status across Latin America. Rabies virus is widespread in Latin American bat species, 22.5%75 of bat species have been confirmed as rabies-positive. Most bat species found rabies positive are classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as “Least Concern”. According to diet type, insectivorous bats had the most species known as rabies reservoirs, while in proportion hematophagous bats were the most important. Research at coarse spatial scales must strive to understand rabies ecology; basic information on distribution and population dynamics of many Latin American and Caribbean bat species is needed; and detailed information on effects of landscape change in driving bat-borne rabies outbreaks remains unassessed. Finally, integrated approaches including public health, ecology, and conservation biology are needed to understand and prevent emergent diseases in bats.

Risk Modeling of Bat Rabies in the Caribbean Islands

“…For the risk categorization of RF1, a shapefile was created in ArcGIS representing American mainland and Caribbean countries that have a documented presence of rabid bats [4], and then buffered to create five different distance ranges from each landmass. Each grid-cell within the area of the buffered landmasses had a value representative of its respective risk.…”

“…For RF2, 12 bat species have been documented to be rabid on one or more of the Caribbean islands [4]. These bat species were considered as rabies-associated bat species (RABS), and include Eptesicus fuscus (Big Brown Bat), Eumops glaucinus (Wagner's Bonneted Bat), Tadarida brasiliensis (Brazilian Free-tailed Bat), Diclidurus albus (Northern Ghost Bat), Molossus molossus (Pallas's Mastiff Bat), Pteronotus davyi (Davy's Naked-backed Bat), Pteronotus parnellii (Parnell's Mustached Bat), Artibeus jamaicensis (Jamaican Fruit-eating Bat), Artibeus lituratus (Great Fruit-eating Bat), Carollia perspicillata (Seba's Short-tailed Bat), Desmodus rotundus (Common Vampire Bat), and Diaemus youngi (White-winged Vampire Bat).…”

“…The validation model ( Figure 3) determined Cuba (6.17) and the island shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti (6.08) as the highest risk, followed by Trinidad and Tobago (5.24), and Grenada (5.31). All these islands have documented occurrences of laboratory confirmed rabid bats [4,[12][13][14][15]. Risk values attained from the validation model for each of the Caribbean countries where bat rabies has been detected are displayed in Table 3 .…”

“…While canine rabies control efforts were very successful at reducing the number of dog-associated human rabies deaths and rabid dogs, there are limited tools available to control rabies in bat populations. In the Americas, reports of rabid bats have been stable in recent years [1,3,4]. Currently, all countries within the mainland of North, Central and South America are endemic for bat rabies virus variants [1,[4][5][6][7].…”

“…In the Americas, reports of rabid bats have been stable in recent years [1,3,4]. Currently, all countries within the mainland of North, Central and South America are endemic for bat rabies virus variants [1,[4][5][6][7]. As a result of the widespread control of canine rabies, Latin America now reports more human rabies cases transmitted by bats than cases transmitted by dogs [6,8].…”