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Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations

Rabies is caused by infection with a lyssavirus. Bat rabies is of concern for both public health and bat conservation. The current method for lyssavirus prevalence studies in bat populations is by oral swabbing, which is invasive for the bats, dangerous for handlers, time‐consuming and expensive. In...

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Autores principales: Begeman, Lineke, Kooi, Engbert A., van Weezep, Erik, van de Bildt, Marco W. G., Reusken, Chantal B. E. M., Lina, Peter H. C., Koopmans, Marion P. G., van den Brand, Judith M. A., Kuiken, Thijs
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7027462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31814288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/zph.12672
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author Begeman, Lineke
Kooi, Engbert A.
van Weezep, Erik
van de Bildt, Marco W. G.
Reusken, Chantal B. E. M.
Lina, Peter H. C.
Koopmans, Marion P. G.
van den Brand, Judith M. A.
Kuiken, Thijs
author_facet Begeman, Lineke
Kooi, Engbert A.
van Weezep, Erik
van de Bildt, Marco W. G.
Reusken, Chantal B. E. M.
Lina, Peter H. C.
Koopmans, Marion P. G.
van den Brand, Judith M. A.
Kuiken, Thijs
author_sort Begeman, Lineke
collection PubMed
description Rabies is caused by infection with a lyssavirus. Bat rabies is of concern for both public health and bat conservation. The current method for lyssavirus prevalence studies in bat populations is by oral swabbing, which is invasive for the bats, dangerous for handlers, time‐consuming and expensive. In many situations, such sampling is not feasible, and hence, our understanding of epidemiology of bat rabies is limited. Faeces are usually easy to collect from bat colonies without disturbing the bats and thus could be a practical and feasible material for lyssavirus prevalence studies. To further explore this idea, we performed virological analysis on faecal pellets and oral swabs of seven serotine bats (Eptesicus serotinus) that were positive for European bat 1 lyssavirus in the brain. We also performed immunohistochemical and virological analyses on digestive tract samples of these bats to determine potential sources of lyssavirus in the faeces. We found that lyssavirus detection by RT‐qPCR was nearly as sensitive in faecal pellets (6/7 bats positive, 86%) as in oral swabs (7/7 bats positive, 100%). The likely source of lyssavirus in the faeces was virus excreted into the oral cavity from the salivary glands (5/6 bats positive by immunohistochemistry and RT‐qPCR) or tongue (3/4 bats positive by immunohistochemistry) and swallowed with saliva. Virus could not be isolated from any of the seven faecal pellets, suggesting the lyssavirus detected in faeces is not infectious. Lyssavirus detection in the majority of faecal pellets of infected bats shows that this novel material should be further explored for lyssavirus prevalence studies in bats.
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spelling pubmed-70274622020-02-24 Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations Begeman, Lineke Kooi, Engbert A. van Weezep, Erik van de Bildt, Marco W. G. Reusken, Chantal B. E. M. Lina, Peter H. C. Koopmans, Marion P. G. van den Brand, Judith M. A. Kuiken, Thijs Zoonoses Public Health Short Communication Rabies is caused by infection with a lyssavirus. Bat rabies is of concern for both public health and bat conservation. The current method for lyssavirus prevalence studies in bat populations is by oral swabbing, which is invasive for the bats, dangerous for handlers, time‐consuming and expensive. In many situations, such sampling is not feasible, and hence, our understanding of epidemiology of bat rabies is limited. Faeces are usually easy to collect from bat colonies without disturbing the bats and thus could be a practical and feasible material for lyssavirus prevalence studies. To further explore this idea, we performed virological analysis on faecal pellets and oral swabs of seven serotine bats (Eptesicus serotinus) that were positive for European bat 1 lyssavirus in the brain. We also performed immunohistochemical and virological analyses on digestive tract samples of these bats to determine potential sources of lyssavirus in the faeces. We found that lyssavirus detection by RT‐qPCR was nearly as sensitive in faecal pellets (6/7 bats positive, 86%) as in oral swabs (7/7 bats positive, 100%). The likely source of lyssavirus in the faeces was virus excreted into the oral cavity from the salivary glands (5/6 bats positive by immunohistochemistry and RT‐qPCR) or tongue (3/4 bats positive by immunohistochemistry) and swallowed with saliva. Virus could not be isolated from any of the seven faecal pellets, suggesting the lyssavirus detected in faeces is not infectious. Lyssavirus detection in the majority of faecal pellets of infected bats shows that this novel material should be further explored for lyssavirus prevalence studies in bats. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-12-08 2020-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7027462/ /pubmed/31814288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/zph.12672 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Zoonoses and Public Health published by Blackwell Verlag GmbH This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Short Communication
Begeman, Lineke
Kooi, Engbert A.
van Weezep, Erik
van de Bildt, Marco W. G.
Reusken, Chantal B. E. M.
Lina, Peter H. C.
Koopmans, Marion P. G.
van den Brand, Judith M. A.
Kuiken, Thijs
Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
title Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
title_full Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
title_fullStr Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
title_full_unstemmed Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
title_short Faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
title_sort faeces as a novel material to estimate lyssavirus prevalence in bat populations
topic Short Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7027462/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31814288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/zph.12672
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