Subject: Re: bats and rabies
Date: Sep 26 15:55:51 1997
From: Kelly Cassidy - kelly at salmo.cqs.washington.edu


On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Kelly Mcallister wrote:
> I am not sure exactly what this "reservoir" thing is all about. It seems to
> mean that Big Brown and Silver-haired bats can carry the virus without
> it harming them. They can pass it on to other animals who get sick and die.
> Presumably, then, another bat species might get it from a Big Brown or
> Silver-haired bat and pass it along before dying. If anyone has the ability
> to shed additional light on this issue, I would sure appreciate it.

I'm too lazy to refresh my memory by going to the library and doing
research, and I got into trouble last time I did that, so my recollection
(i.e., don't quote me) is that rabies is something of a childhood disease
in bats. It kills some bats, but many survive it, and are then immune. I
don't think they can pass it on unless they have an active case, i.e.,
they're not a carrier for life. Like all infectious diseases, therefore,
rabies needs a large reservoir of uninfected victims. The populations in
the our part of the country probably aren't large enough to allow the
virus to persist up here, except that some bats are migratory. The
southern bat populations are much larger and the rabies virus isn't in any
danger of going extinct because of loss of new victims. Migratory bats
pick it up when they are down south and the victims carry it back up
north.

> human deaths from rabies are extremely rare here. In wild bats, the
> occurrence of rabies is quite rare, probably on the order of about 1 bat
> in 1,000.

That may be true here, but I believe it's quite a bit higher in southern
populations. Or that's only the proportion of active cases at any given
time.

> Nevertheless, I wouldn't handle bats without gloves.

Speaking as someone who's gone throught the rabies series of shots, I
wouldn't handle one without a rabies vaccination. One the other hand,
your chances of being a road-rage victim are a lot higher than those of
being a rabies victim, so there's no sense in overblowing the danger.

Kelly Cassidy -- Washington Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit
Box 357980, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195
kelly at u.washington.edu --- 206-685-4195 --- 206-368-8076