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Rabies virus (RABV) transmitted by the common vampire bat (

Vampire bat transmitted rabies (VBR) is a continuing burden to public health and agricultural sectors in Latin America, despite decades-long efforts to control the disease by culling bat populations. Culling has been shown to disperse bats, leading to an increased spread of rabies. Thus, non-lethal strategies to control VBR, such as vaccination, are desired. Here, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of a viral-vectored recombinant mosaic glycoprotein rabies vaccine candidate (RCN-MoG) in vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) of unknown history of rabies exposure captured in México and transported to the United States. Vaccination with RCN-MoG was demonstrated to be safe, even in pregnant females, as no evidence of lesions or adverse effects were observed. We detected rabies neutralizing antibodies in 28% (8/29) of seronegative bats post-vaccination. Survival proportions of adult bats after rabies virus (RABV) challenge ranged from 55–100% and were not significantly different among treatments, pre- or post-vaccination serostatus, and route of vaccination, while eight pups (1–2.5 months of age) used as naïve controls all succumbed to challenge (P

We report mortality events in a group of 123 common vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) captured in México and housed for a rabies vaccine efficacy study in Madison, Wisconsin. Bat mortalities occurred in México and Wisconsin, but rabies cases reported herein are only those that occurred after arrival in Madison (n = 15). Bats were confirmed positive for rabies virus (RABV) by the direct fluorescent antibody test. In accordance with previous reports, we observed long incubation periods (more than 100 days), variability in clinical signs prior to death, excretion of virus in saliva, and changes in rabies neutralizing antibody (rVNA) titers post-infection. We observed that the furious form of rabies (aggression, hyper-salivation, and hyper-excitability) manifested in three bats, which has not been reported in vampire bat studies since 1936. RABV was detected in saliva of 5/9 bats, 2−5 days prior to death, but was not detected in four of those bats that had been vaccinated shortly after exposure. Bats from different capture sites were involved in two separate outbreaks, and phylogenetic analysis revealed differences in the glycoprotein gene sequences of RABV isolated from each event, indicating that two different lineages were circulating separately during capture at each site.