Prevalence of Rabies Specific Antibodies in the Mexican Free-Tailed Bat (Tadarida Brasiliensis Mexicana) at Lava Cave, New Mexico

Abstract

Adult female and juvenile Mexican free-tailed bats (Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana) were collected bimonthly at Lava Cave, New Mexico from May through September. The purpose of this study was to examine tailed bat recovers from rabies virus infection.

Prevalence of Neutralizing Antibodies to Rabies Virus in Serum of Seven Species of Insectivorous Bats From Colorado and New Mexico, United States

“…Rabies virus may have evolved initially in bats before becoming established in carnivore reservoirs through spillover and host switching, although this concept has not yet been resolved (Badrane and Tordo, 2001;Hughes et al, 2005;Davis et al, 2006). Our study adds to several reports indicating that a substantial fraction of apparently healthy bats have neutralizing antibodies to rabies virus (Constantine et al, 1968;Trimarchi and Debbie, 1977;Steece and Altenbach, 1989;Salas-Rojas et al, 2004;Shankar et al, 2004;Streicker et al, 2012), suggesting that they have undergone significant exposure to the virus, but that the infection failed to progress to clinical disease. To date, RVNA have also been detected in a number of other mammals of North America (Hanlon et al, 2007), including human fur trappers (Black and Wiktor, 1986;Follmann et al, 1994).…”

“…Experimental exposure of big brown bats to an E. fuscus rabies variant isolated from a naturally infected big brown bat suggests some protective effect of past exposures to subclinical doses (Turmelle et al, 2010b). Another mechanism that may commonly result in the development of antibodies without disease is exposure of young bats to the virus while they still enjoy passive protection from maternal antibody (Steece and Altenbach, 1989). This situation may result in development of acquired protective immunity that would be boosted periodically by re-exposure to the virus.…”

“…Serologic testing offers limited insight into past exposures of seemingly clinically normal bats to rabies virus; negative test results in particular do not guarantee a lack of exposure and are critically dependent on the cutoff value used for the test. Most of the earlier work on this topic has been based on terminal bleeding of individuals of three species of colonial bats (Trimarchi and Debbie, 1977;Steece and Altenbach, 1989). There are about 45 species of bats in the United States, and many of these are of conservation concern (O'Shea et al, 2003).…”

Lyssavirus Surveillance in Bats, Bangladesh

“…Thus, it is not surprising that all brain samples collected were negative for detection of lyssavirus antigen. Because different lyssaviruses and bat species are found in Asia, and therefore different virus-host interactions would be expected in the region, extrapolating antibody-positive/virus-positive ratios, as have been estimated from American ( 13 , 14 ) or European ( 15 ) bat populations, would be difficult.…”

Rabies diagnosis and serology in bats from the State of São Paulo, Brazil

“…Bats collected by the public are often sick or injured and therefore represent a biased subpopulation of bats more likely to be infected with rabies, such that rabies prevalence tends to be higher 11,13,14 . In studies where presumed healthy bats captured during flight were screened for the rabies virus, prevalence is consistently reported as less than 2% 12 .…”