Susceptibility of carnivora to rabies virus administered orally.

Abstract

Bell, J. F. and G. J. Moore (NIAID, Rocky Mountain Laboratory, Hamilton, Mont. 59840). Susceptibility of camivora to rabies virus administered orally. Amer J Epidem 93: 176–182, 1971.—The present study establishes that striped skunks may be fatally infected by eating one infected mouse; ferrets and cats were not infected, the latter even when they consumed 25 infected carcasses. Ingestion of virus did not elicit formation of humoral neutralizing antibodies. Rabies virus was not found in the mouths of cats or skunks at intervals of 1 hour, 1 day and 1 week after they ingested infected carcasses but the virus was commonly detectable in the saliva of animals when they developed signs of illness. Survival of rabies virus was demonstrated in frozen mouse carcasses for as long as 12 years. The prolonged survival of virus, the occurrence of rabies in bats in midwinter, and aberrant location and activities of rabid bats suggest the potential of spread to camivora by the oral route wherever infected prey species occur.