Drivers of Spatial Expansions of Vampire Bat Rabies in Colombia

Abstract

Spatial expansions of vampire bat-transmitted rabies (VBR) are increasing the risk of lethal infections in livestock and humans in Latin America. Identifying the drivers of these expansions could improve current approaches to surveillance and prevention. We aimed to identify if VBR spatial expansions are occurring in Colombia and test factors associated with these expansions. We analyzed 2336 VBR outbreaks in livestock reported to the National Animal Health Agency (Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario—ICA) affecting 297 municipalities from 2000–2019. The area affected by VBR changed through time and was correlated to the reported number of outbreaks each year. Consistent with spatial expansions, some municipalities reported VBR outbreaks for the first time each year and nearly half of the estimated infected area in 2010–2019 did not report outbreaks in the previous decade. However, the number of newly infected municipalities decreased between 2000–2019, suggesting decelerating spatial expansions. Municipalities infected later had lower cattle populations and were located further from the local reporting offices of the ICA. Reducing the VBR burden in Colombia requires improving vaccination coverage in both endemic and newly infected areas while improving surveillance capacity in increasingly remote areas with lower cattle populations where rabies is emerging.

WITHDRAWN: Demographic and ecological drivers of infectome diversity in companion cats

“…To gain a better understanding of microbial dynamics among cat populations, it's important to move beyond descriptive host-pathogen associations and strive for a mechanistic understanding of when and where infectious pathogens are transmitted, as well as how the entire pathogen community (infectome) is influenced by the environment and local host communities (22,23). For instance, changes in parasite richness in wild animals have been linked to habitat loss and fragmentation, indicating that anthropogenic alterations in host species composition and population densities can directly impact parasite community compositions (24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29). Similarly, anthropogenic land-use changes have been observed to influence virus community compositions, suggesting their role as a key determinant of host viromes (30)(31)(32)(33).…”

Incorporating environmental heterogeneity and observation effort to predict host distribution and viral spillover from a bat reservoir

“…The ability of bat culling to reduce rabies incidence is controversial, and efficacy has been questioned based on field, phylogenetic and modelling studies [12,[16][17][18]. Further, countries with active culling campaigns have seen spatial expansions of rabies virus into historically rabies free areas and growing disease burdens [19,20]. It is hypothesized that culls are ineffective because VBR is maintained by spatial processes, including wave-like invasions into historically rabies-free areas and metapopulation maintenance, but culls are reactive to rabies outbreaks and rarely synchronized across enzootic regions [17,19].…”

Deoxynivalenol Mycotoxin Inhibits Rabies Virus Replication In Vitro

“…After the complex of L and P protein is formed, the released RNP is used as a template for repeated transcription. The M protein affects the initiation of viral replication by regulating the threshold of viral N protein [6,7]. RABV, with its replicates at a low level in vitro and absence of cytopathic effect, has also been found to be highly pathogenic and currently has no effective treatment [8,9].…”