chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu (Lucius Chiaraviglio) (06/11/88)
In article <1029@mit-caf.UUCP> herb@mit-caf.UUCP (Herbert Neuhaus) writes: >Sorry, but you have been lied to. Bats don't carry rabies. Of course, >any mammal, including bats, can contract rabies. In order for an animal >to be a "carrier" it must be relatively immune from the disease, otherwise >they die. Bats die from rabies, they don't carry it. Bats have been known to transmit rabies. Even if they die of it quite rapidly they still have a short time to bite some other animal -- that's how rabies gets around. Also, I have read (unfortunately I cannot remember the source, but it was not a tabloid :-) ) that people have gotten rabies from breathing the air in caves with extremely heavy bat populations. I don't know how long the caves remained that heavily populated after that -- it may be that when the population of a bat cave gets to a certain point rabies will spread explosively through it and decimate it, but I haven't seen any documentation on this. In the meantime, DO NOT ASSUME that bats or any other animal cannot carry rabies. Rabies is a rhabdovirus, meaning that it has the same general structure as Vesicular Stomatitis Virus, and will also have an extremely broad host range as well (which can even infect cells of amphibians and I think even some fish). Rabies virus is even capable of infecting some birds and reptiles, although presumably these are not normal hosts for it. -- Lucius Chiaraviglio chiaravi@silver.bacs.indiana.edu lucius@tardis.harvard.edu (in case the first one doesn't work) "NO DYING ALLOWED." -- The Maytag coin-operated washing machine instruction poster. "This would be nice!" -- graffitti seen on the Maytag coin-operated washing machine instruction poster in the Daniels laundry room in Currier House at Harvard University.
osmigo@ut-emx.UUCP (06/12/88)
[some guy says don't worry about bats being "carriers" of rabies]
Ok, ok, OK!!!! "Carriers," whatever, don't play semantic games. The point
is, bats are a nasty animal to "have" rabies (is that a safe word?), and
have a reputation as such. Just recently, some rabid bats were found under
a bridge here in Austin, and there was a GREAT deal of concern, since they
were right smack in the middle of downtown (the Colorado River, about 500
feet wide, crosses right through town).
The key concern seems to be that (a) bats are gregarious to the extreme, i.e.,
if one gets it, it can spread to literally hundreds of them quite easily, and
(b) being a flying creature, a rabid bat could cover quite a bit more ground
than say, a cat or dog. I shudder to think of a colony of rabid bats right
in somebody's backyard in a densely populated residential area. Sheesh.
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<||>---Ron Morgan---<||>-UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra,ut-sally}!emx!osmigo-<||||||||||>
<||>-Univ. of Texas-<||>-------osmigo@emx.UUCP---------------------<||||||||||>
<||>--Austin Texas--<||>-ARPA: osmigo@emx.utexas.edu---------------<||||||||||>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------wcb@sortac.UUCP (Bill Barksdale) (06/13/88)
In article <1893@silver.bacs.indiana.edu> chiaravi@silver.UUCP (Lucius Chiaraviglio) writes: >--- > I have read (unfortunately I cannot remember the source, but it >was not a tabloid :-) ) that people have gotten rabies from breathing the air >in caves with extremely heavy bat populations. I don't know how long the >caves remained that heavily populated after that -- it may be that when the >population of a bat cave gets to a certain point rabies will spread >explosively through it and decimate it, but I haven't seen any documentation >on this. >--- An article from UPI in Sunday's newspaper tells about a zoology prof who spends a lot of time in caves, studying bats. It describes fairly elaborate precautions he takes to protect himself from the bat droppings he invariably encounters on his excursions, including injections for the rabies virus (no details on what is injected,) because, as the article states, the respirator he uses does not filter out this virus. Conditions around bat houses would be different than in caves, but not different enough for me - which I think is academic, anyway. I can't see anybody building a house that bats could be enticed to live in to the point of making a noticeable reduction in the local bug population. -- "Even if the wheels fall off, we can SLIDE in from here!" - Rick Mears, just before winning the '88 Indy 500 Bill Barksdale AT&T Network Systems Atlanta, GA