Rabies: an antique disease, but still current

Abstract

The main objective of this manuscript is to provide students of veterinary medicine, veterinarians and other health-related professionals with scientific and technical information on rabies. Although the disease is known since antiquity, it is now defined as a neglected zoonosis and it remains endemic especially in developing countries, because of financial limitations and problems of infrastructure. The vampire bats were reported as new reservoirs of rabies in Latin America and Caribbean islands in the early 20th century provoking economic losses in livestock and human deaths, but still the world is astonished because of the lyssaviruses in non hematophagous bats in Africa, Oceania, and Eurasia. Rabies and the rabiesrelated viruses, collectively known as lyssaviruses, can be distinguished by molecular characterization into several distinct genotypes but only the genotype 1 viruses are customarily known as rabies viruses, whereas all others are referred to as lyssaviruses. In virus taxonomy, the use of the molecular techniques now available has augmented the species members of the genus Lyssavirus and revealed the existence of distinct variants of rabies viruses distributed among different animal species in different regions of the world. The European colonization of Africa, Asia and the New World played a significant role in the dispersion of the “cosmopolitan lineage” of the rabies virus through infected dogs traveling with the conquerors and colonizers. Rabies virus, once established in the dog populations, may then have been transmitted into new wildlife host reservoirs and evolved into distinct strains due to accumulated mutations through centuries. The reservoir hosts of rabies in the world differ according to the geographic locations.