A denevérveszettség aktuális helyzete Magyarországon

Abstract

SUMMARY Background: The European bat lyssavirus types 1 and 2 (EBLV-1 and EBLV-2) belong to the Lyssavirus genus within the Rhabdoviridae family. Although bats are considered the ancestral and often the primary hosts for EBLVs, interspecies transmission events affecting non-reservoir hosts (e.g. cats, martens, foxes and humans) have been reported. Objectives: This retrospective study gives an overview of the isolated bat lyssaviruses in Hungary. Study results rely on passive surveillance that dates back to the late 1970s.Materials and Methods: Samples of bat origin samples were examined by using three classical methods. Brain sections were examined by fluorescent antibody test and haematoxylin-eosin staining to detect lympho-histiocytic inflammation, in addition, mouse inoculation test was implemented in all cases whenever human contact had been reported. The partial nucleoprotein coding region of the genomic RNA was sequenced for further examination. Phylogenetic analysis was conducted by maximum-likelihood method using the MEGA6 software. Results and Discussion: Passive surveillance for EBLV identified seven positive animals out of 144 tested specimens over a four decade period. All bats that tested positive were serotine bat (Eptesicus serotinus), whereas the identified virus isolates could be classified into the EBLV-1 species and the EBLV-1a genetic cluster. Surveillance results suggest that bat lyssavirus infection is rare among species of the Hungarian bat fauna. Future studies should aim at gaining deeper insight into viral transmission, host spectrum and incidence of symptomatic and asymptomatic infections.