Bat hibernation keeps rabies going

When winter arrives and insects are in short supply, most North American bats hibernate. But this long sleep also keeps the rabies virus alive in infected individuals, according to a new study. Although only one or two people die from rabies each year in the United States, their infections are usually traceable to bats. In addition, bats are hosts for some “really nasty” diseases in other parts of the world, such as Bangladesh, Malaysia, and Australia, says lead author Dylan George, an infectious disease biologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. And yet very little is known about how viruses persist in bats without becoming deadly enough to wipe out their supply of hosts, George says. To learn more, George and colleagues set up a mathematical model using data collected during a 5-year field study of big brown bats in Colorado. The...