About This Project

Bats are one of the most prolific and ecologically important groups of mammals on the planet, but they are often maligned as "flying disease vectors" due to the numerous pathogens they can carry, including rabies virus. Our project will investigate a new vaccination strategy by "dusting" several bats with the VRG oral rabies vaccine, releasing them in a colony, and then testing the colony for transmission and efficacy of the vaccine by grooming behavior.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Bats are known carriers of many pathogens, including some that can infect humans, such as rabies. These flying mammals are vital to our ecosystems, but are often targeted for destruction to mitigate the spread of disease. The goal of this project is to find a means of vaccinating the bats that utilizes bat colony behavior to help spread the vaccine. Several oral rabies vaccines have been successfully deployed in wildlife populations and show potential for efficacy in preventing bat rabies experimentally. Our study will test if dusting a few bats with RABORAL V-RG® vaccine and releasing them back into the colony will allow for bat grooming and close contact behavior to spread the vaccine to other bats.

What is the significance of this project?

Rabies is an age-old disease that still accounts for approximately 59,000 human deaths annually and countless animal deaths according to the WHO. The goal of global eradication of rabies is going to require a concentrated effort to eliminate the disease from animal reservoirs, notably bats. Oronasal vaccination of bats shows promise as an effective method of rabies prevention but delivery of a vaccine to bats in the wild poses a significant challenge. If we can demonstrate that bats themselves can be used to help spread the vaccine, we can provide a tool to the wildlife community that could significantly alter the role that bats play in perpetuation of rabies and potentially other pathogens in nature.

What are the goals of the project?

Our hypothesis is that dusting bats with a concentrated powdered form of the oral rabies vaccine and returning them to their colony will trigger the spread of the vaccine from bat to bat through normal grooming and roosting behavior. We will trap 25 bats in Jul/Aug, 2019, obtain a blood sample to test for existing rabies antibodies, and habituate them for three weeks in our animal facilities. We will then vaccinate 5 bats by dusting them with concentrated oral rabies vaccine and releasing them back into the room with the remaining contact animals. Serum will be tested for antibodies one month following vaccination, at which time bats will be challenged with rabies virus to test for vaccine protection in the bats. The survival study will last up to 6 weeks to confirm protection.