Rabies on the Doorstep

Apparently, the United Kingdom had been free of indigenous rabies since 1902. However, in 1996, a rabies-infected Daubenton's bat (Myotis daubentonii) was found at Newhaven on the south coast of England. It seemed possible that this sick bat had been carried in by boat or blown across the Channel by prevailing winds. In 2002, an infected juvenile bat of the same species was found on the Lancashire Canal, which runs between Preston and Tewitfield in northwestern England. Both the bat's age and location favored the possibility that it had acquired rabies in England. In both these cases, the rabies-related virus involved was European bat lyssavirus (EBLV) type 2a (Whitby et al., 2000; Johnson et al., 2002). EBLV 2 had been implicated in three human deaths from rabies in mainland Europe (Lumio et al., 1986; World Health Organisation 1987; Roine et al., 1988).