October 31 – Rabid dogs and vampire bats for your Halloween

Rabies is a serious disease that has multiple hosts, and has been known to occur simultaneously in different hosts, making detection of the source difficult. Rabies virus variants were traced to two sources in Brazil: vampire bats and feral dogs. The two variants were genetically distinct, and represented genetic evolutionary sources from South America (vampire bats only), and Europe/Africa. The European/African variant was most likely introduced by explorers to the New World. In addition, the authors discovered current rabies vaccines do not treat all wild variants of rabies, indicating the need for additional research on the rabies virus and development of vaccines for its variants. – Marissa

• Article – Genetic characterization and geographic distribution of rabies virus isolates in Brazil: Identification of two reservoirs, dogs and vampire bats
• Citation – Ito, M., Arai, Y. T., Itou, T., Sakai, T., Ito, F. H., Takasaki, T., & Kurane, I. (2001). Genetic characterization and geographic distribution of rabies virus isolates in Brazil: identification of two reservoirs, dogs and vampire bats. Virology, 284(2), 214-222.
  
• Presenter – Marissa, Marine Invertebrate Lab