Effects of culling vampire bats on the spatial spread and spillover of rabies virus.
Sci Adv
; 9(10): eadd7437, 2023 03 10.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-36897949
ABSTRACT
Controlling pathogen circulation in wildlife reservoirs is notoriously challenging. In Latin America, vampire bats have been culled for decades in hopes of mitigating lethal rabies infections in humans and livestock. Whether culls reduce or exacerbate rabies transmission remains controversial. Using Bayesian state-space models, we show that a 2-year, spatially extensive bat cull in an area of exceptional rabies incidence in Peru failed to reduce spillover to livestock, despite reducing bat population density. Viral whole genome sequencing and phylogeographic analyses further demonstrated that culling before virus arrival slowed viral spatial spread, but reactive culling accelerated spread, suggesting that culling-induced changes in bat dispersal promoted viral invasions. Our findings question the core assumptions of density-dependent transmission and localized viral maintenance that underlie culling bats as a rabies prevention strategy and provide an epidemiological and evolutionary framework to understand the outcomes of interventions in complex wildlife disease systems.
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Banco de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Rabia
/
Virus de la Rabia
/
Quirópteros
Tipo de estudio:
Prognostic_studies
Límite:
Animals
/
Humans
País/Región como asunto:
America do sul
/
Peru
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Adv
Año:
2023
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Reino Unido