Bat-associated rabies virus in Skunks

Abstract

Rabies was undetected in terrestrial wildlife of northern Arizona until 2001, when rabies was diagnosed in 19 rabid skunks in Flagstaff. Laboratory analyses showed causative rabies viruses associated with bats, which indicated cross-species transmission of unprecedented magnitude. Public health infrastructure must be maintained to address emerging zoonotic diseases.

Figure 1

Temporal and geographic distribution of rabies outbreak in Flagstaff, Arizona. A) Timeline and control measures. TVR: trap, vaccinate, release program. B) Geographic location of rabid skunks (dark gray dots = subclade 1, light gray dots = subclade 2).

Figure 2

A) Phylogenetic tree of the 19 rabid skunk isolates and representative samples of known rabies virus variants (RABVV) from Arizona based on 300 bp of the nucleoprotein (N) gene (GenBank accession no. AY170226–304). B) Detailed analyses of clade including all 19 skunk isolates (clade B) based on 2221 bp of the N and glycoprotein (G) genes (GenBank accession no. AY170397–438). Phylogenetic analyses used PAUP* software (version 4.0b2, Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA, USA; 2000] using the neighbor-joining search algorithm (minimum evolution) with maximum likelihood to estimate Ti:Tv ratio and nucleotide base frequencies (HKY85 model). Numbers at tree nodes indicate nonparametric bootstrap proportions based on 1,000 replicates.