In South and Central America, bats that live with blood with major problems for all farmers or ranch owners have livestock. At night, the vampires bite the animals so that they are weakened and become susceptible to infections or be infected with fatal diseases, such as rabies. Each year, around 450 outbreaks of rabies are among livestock in South and Central America at a cost of approximately SEK 500 million.
The animal owners often try to solve the problem by completely sonica poisoning the bats, which is not a completely successful solution. Partly because it has proven to be difficult to kill all animals in a colony, and partly because bats fulfill an important organic function. Not least because they hold insects that damage the farmers’ crops.
There is one Oral vaccine against rabies, but vaccinating each individual cannot be done. On the other hand, bats are social animals who like to clean and lick each other. With this knowledge as a starting point, researchers at the University of Wisconsin in the United States have now tested a whole new way to vaccinate bats – with the help of a sticky gel containing rabies vaccine.
The starting point was a colony consisting of around 117 bats of the species actual vampire (Desmodus round) who daytime kuckelurated in an abandoned barn in southwestern Mexico. The researchers caught and lubricated the spinal coat of 24 of them with the gel, which also contained a fluorescent substance that made them see if, and if so, the vaccine spread in the colony.
The study, as yet not been scientifically published, but as both Nature och science writes about, shows that 88 percent of the animals in the current colony were vaccinated against Rabies seven days later. It was less likely that adult males were there, which indicates that it is more common among females and younger individuals to tinker about each other’s fur.
According to the researchers, larger studies must be conducted before you can safely say whether the strategy works or not. But if it does, the approach may become relevant for more diseases than just rabies, they say. Possibly to stop white-nose (White-Nose Syndrome), a for cave bats in the United States devastating disease, as it affects their ability to winter. The disease is caused by an invasive fungus that since 2006 has killed millions of bats, mainly in the northeastern parts of the country.
Read more:
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