Susceptibility of North American big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus) to infection with European bat lyssavirus type 1

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the susceptibility of insectivorous bats (using the big brown bat as a model) to infection with European bat lyssavirus type 1a , to assess the dynamics of host immune responses and to evaluate the opportunity for horizontal viral transmission within colonies. Two isolates of EBLV-1a, originating from Slovakia (EBLV-1aSK) and Germany (EBLV-1aGE), were tested. According to EUROBATS, an organization dedicated to the conservation of European bat populations, 45 species of bat are geographically distributed throughout Europe (Eurobats, 2004). So far, EBLV-1 has been found predominantly in specific association with the serotine

Twenty years of active bat rabies surveillance in Germany: a detailed analysis and future perspectives

“…This supports findings from serological studies on Lagos bat virus which postulated that acute transmission of bat lyssaviruses in adapted bat hosts occurs at a far higher rate than the occurrence of disease [47]. Our results further support previous experimental studies that although lyssaviruses have the ability to cause clinical disease in bats, they may not necessarily be fatal [41,42,44]. Unlike in other mammalian species where antibodies against RABV are only detectable in the final stage of infection, shortly before the animal's death, we were able to observe seroconversion in repeatedly captured bats (Table 2).…”

“…The low number of RT-PCR-positive animals corroborates results obtained in experimental studies of EBLV infection in European bats (E. serotinus, M. daubentonii) and in North American big brown bats (E. fuscus), in which virus shedding was rarely detected [41,42,44]. However, active bat rabies surveillance studies are considerably biased by random sampling, and samples do not necessarily represent the entire populations of each indigenous bat species.…”

“…In our study, repeated detection of viral RNA in saliva swabs from recaptured serotine bats (E. serotinus) was not observed. In Spain, an initially EBLV-1-positive E. isabellinus was negative on recapturing [20], thus supporting observations in experimentally infected serotine bats [41,42]. However, unlike in other studies, not only serotine bats but also a single Natterer's bat and Western barbastelle bats tested positive for EBLV-1-specific RNA.…”

Experimental infection of serotine bats (Eptesicus serotinus) with European bat lyssavirus type 1a

“…In contrast to previous EBLV-1 studies in Chiroptera (Botvinkin et al, 1992;Kuzmin et al, 1994;Franka et al, 2008), the natural host, the serotine bat, was infected experimentally with EBLV-1 in this study to mimic different possible routes of infection. Whilst all animals inoculated by the i.c.…”

“…In contrast to this study, EBLV-1 infection via i.m. inoculation in nonreservoir bat species resulted in mortalities of up to 24 % (M. daubentonii and M. brandtii) and 57 % (E. fuscus) (Botvinkin et al, 1992;Franka et al, 2008). Also, in other experimental studies with the new Eurasian lyssavirus genotypes Aravan, Khujand and Irkut viruses, considerably higher mortalities of 75, 60 and 54 %, respectively, were found in E. fuscus (Hughes et al, 2006;Kuzmin et al, 2008).…”