RESUMEN

The common vampire bat (Desmodus rotundus) is a hematophagous species responsible for paralytic rabies and bite damage that affects livestock, humans and wildlife from Mexico to Argentina. Current measures to control vampires, based upon coumarin-derived poisons, are not used extensively due in part to the high cost of application, risks for bats that share roosts with vampires and residual environmental contamination. Observations that vampire bat bites may induce resistance in livestock against vampire bat salivary anticoagulants encourage research into novel vaccine-based alternatives particularly focused upon increasing livestock resistance to vampire salivary components. We evaluated the action of vampire bat saliva-Freund's incomplete adjuvant administered to sheep with anticoagulant responses induced by repeated vampire bites in a control group and examined characteristics of vampire bat salivary secretion. We observed that injections induced a response against vampire bat salivary anticoagulants stronger than by repeated vampire bat bites. Based upon these preliminary findings, we hypothesize the utility of developing a control technique based on induction of an immunologically mediated resistance against vampire bat anticoagulants and rabies virus via dual delivery of appropriate host and pathogen antigens. Fundamental characteristics of host biology favor alternative strategies than simple culling by poisons for practical, economical, and ecologically relevant management of vampire populations within a One Health context.

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Las investigaciones en el campo indican que el comportamiento del virus de la rabia en las poblaciones de vampiros es semejante al de otros agentes infecciosos en otros huéspedes. En el estudio al que se refiere este informe, solo se aisló virus de los vampiros poco antes y en el transcurso de brotes de rabia bovina. En los sueros de vampiros obtenidos antes de la manifestación de los brotes en bovinos no se detectaron frecuentemente anticuerpos contra la rabia. En el curso de los brotes se registraron tasas de anticuerpos bajas, las que se elevaron una vez concluidos estos brotes (AU)

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Vampire bat populations were opportunely sampled before, during, and at varying intervals after outbreaks of bovine rabies. The captured bats were examined for rabies neutralizing antibody and virus. In all, sera from 1,024 vampire bats were tested for antibody, and tissues from these bats plus 83 others were tested for virus. Neutralizing antibody only rarely appeared in vampire serum samples taken before bovine rabies outbreaks, and only low percentages of samples positive for rabies antibody were obtained from bats captured during bovine outbreaks. In contrast, varying percentages of positive samples (including some high percentages) were taken from bats captured at various intervals after bovine outbreaks. Only eleven rabies virus isolations were obtained in the course of this study. In each case the virus came from a bat captured just before or during a bovine outbreak. The authors suggest that rabies virus behaves in vampire populations the way diverse infectious agents typically behave in other hosts. That is, the virus infects many individuals; some die and others survive to demonstrate their exposure through the appearance of anitbody. The disease disappears from the bat population in time and does not return until a sufficient number of susceptible bats have re-entered the population (Au)

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RESUMEN

Las investigaciones en el campo indican que el comportamiento del virus de la rabia en las poblaciones de vampiros es semejante al de otros agentes infecciosos en otros huéspedes. En el estudio al que se refiere este informe, solo se aisló virus de los vampiros poco antes y en el transcurso de brotes de rabia bovina. En los sueros de vampiros obtenidos antes de la manifestación de los brotes en bovinos no se detectaron frecuentemente anticuerpos contra la rabia. En el curso de los brotes se registraron tasas de anticuerpos bajas, las que se elevaron una vez concluidos estos brotes (AU)

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