Active surveillance for antibodies confirms circulation of lyssaviruses in Palearctic bats ...

• Main Authors: Seidlova, Veronika, Zukal, Jan, Brichta, Jiri, Anisimov, Nikolay, Apoznański, Grzegorz, Bandouchova, Hana, Bartonička, Tomáš, Berková, Hana, Botvinkin, Alexander D., Heger, Tomas, Dundarova, Heliana, Kokurewicz, Tomasz, Linhart, Petr, Orlov, Oleg L., Piacek, Vladimir, Presetnik, Primož, Shumkina, Alexandra P., Tiunov, Mikhail P., Treml, Frantisek, Pikula, Jiri
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Zenodo 2020
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Vespertilio murinus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13429960; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13429960

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) Background: Palearctic bats host a diversity of lyssaviruses, though not the classical rabies virus (RABV). As surveillance for bat rabies over the Palearctic area covering Central and Eastern Europe and Siberian regions of Russia has been irregular, we lack data on geographic and seasonal patterns of the infection. Results: To address this, we undertook serological testing, using non-lethally sampled blood, on 1027 bats of 25 species in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Slovenia between 2014 and 2018. The indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) detected rabies virus anti-glycoprotein antibodies in 33 bats, giving an overall seroprevalence of 3.2%. Bat species exceeding the seroconversion threshold included Myotis blythii, Myotis gracilis, Myotis petax, Myotis myotis, Murina hilgendorfi, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Vespertilio murinus. While Myotis species (84.8%) and adult females (48.5%) dominated in seropositive bats, juveniles ...