The vampire bats (Desmodus Rotundus) are a serious threat to Central and Southern America breeders, since they infect cattle by spreading anger. Vaccin them with traditional methods such as syringes is complex, but now a study published in PREPRINT on BIORXIV has tested another interesting and, it seems, effective technique: to cover the hair of animals with an oral gel vaccine, e Wait for them to get up to each other licking each other.
A serious problem. In the center and South America the vampire bats cause on average 450 anger epidemics every yearwith a cost for breeders estimated at $ 50 million since the virus infects not only cows, but can also spread between pigs and horses.
It seemed that the so -called vampirepoisonous gels designed to be applied on the hair of animals and be spread through the practice of groming (The way many mammals clean the hair or skin with each other, in the case of vampires licking), could be a solution: however they proved counterproductive, since they only killed a part of the colony by making the remaining members migrate in other areas and promoting the spread of anger.
A vaccine … to lick. Since inocular vaccines with a colony of wild flying animals was certainly not a passable road, scholars decided to combine the two approaches and create an oral vaccine to be applied in the form of fluorescent gel (to monitor its diffusion between the bats).
The authors of the study therefore applied the hair gel of 24 bat belonging to a colony of 117 members, and then released them. Three days and seven days after the administration, they captured 48 bats by taking a hair sample: 88% of bats were vaccinated – Although adult males were the least vaccinated, demonstrating that social groming is a more widespread practice between adult females and young bats.
The next step is to test the vaccine in more numerous colonies and find out if, in addition to blocking the spread of the anger virus, the bats benefit in some way, strengthening them and growing the populations. According to researchers, this same strategy could be used on other species of bats that host the anger virus, or also to protect bats from other threats such as white nose syndrome, a fatal fungal disease.
