Molecular epidemiology of rabies in Botswana: a comparison between antibody typing and nucleotide sequence phylogeny

Pathobiology of rabies virus and the European bat lyssaviruses in experimentally infected mice

“…Sections of each brain were homogenised and analysed for the presence of viral material. Viral nucleic acid was detected following RNA extraction (MELT TM Total Nucleic Acid Isolation System-Ambion, UK), and RT-PCR (Johnson et al, 2004) using the combination of primers JW12, JW6 DPL, JW6 E and JW6 M (Heaton et al, 1997). Positive reactions produced a 606 base pair (bp) fragment, corresponding to position 55-660 of the nucleoprotein gene.…”

Molecular epidemiology of rabies in Guangxi Province, south of China

“…In Latin America, canine rabies and wild rabies, especially transmitted by hematophagous and insectivorous bats, have emerged as problems. Since 2000 the molecular epidemiology of rabies has been published from Africa: Zimbabwe (Sabeta et al, 2003), Botswana (Johnson et al, 2004a), Sudan (Johnson et al, 2004b), and South Africa (Nel et al, 2005); South America: Venezuela (Mattos et al, 1996), Argentina (Cisterna et al, 2005), Bolivia (Favi et al, 2003), Brazil , and Colombia (Hughes et al, 2004); Mexico (Flisser et al, 2002); and Trinidad (Wright et al, 2002). The N gene of the rabies virus is most often the target for genetic analysis and adaptive evolution analysis because the gene is highly conversed (Holmes et al, 2002).…”

Evolutionary History of Rabies in Ghana

“…These included eight viruses from Tema and five from Cape Coast (25 and 142 km from Accra, respectively). There was no evidence of infection with Africa 3 RABV (detected in mongoose in southern Africa) [22], [23], [24], Africa 4 RABV (detected in north-eastern Africa) [31] or other Lyssavirus species such as Lagos bat virus, against which a high seroprevalence of antibodies has been detected in bats from Accra [43]. However, our analysis suggests that rabies epidemiology is much more complex than at first thought from previous studies within West Africa.…”

“…While domestic dogs appear to be the only population essential for maintenance of canid variants in some parts of Africa [17], [18], wild canids have been suggested to contribute to sustaining canine rabies cycles in specific geographic loci in South Africa and Zimbabwe [19], [20], [21]. A third lineage (Africa 3) is thought to be maintained within viverrid species in southern Africa [22], [23], [24]. This phylogenetic distinction has been supported by studies investigating rabies across Africa [13], [25], epidemiological studies of rabies within specific countries [3], [16], [18], [26], studies on wildlife populations [5], [27], [28] and investigations into the origin of human rabies [29], [30].…”