Resolving the roles of immunity, pathogenesis, and immigration for rabies persistence in vampire bats

Bats are important reservoirs for emerging infectious diseases, yet the mechanisms that allow highly virulent pathogens to persist within bat populations remain obscure. In Latin America, vampire-bat–transmitted rabies virus represents a key example of how such uncertainty can impede efforts to prevent cross-species transmission. Despite decades of agricultural and human health losses, control efforts have had limited success. To establish persistence mechanisms of vampire-bat–transmitted rabies virus in Latin America, we use data from a spatially replicated, longitudinal field study of vampire bats in Peru to parameterize a series of mechanistic transmission models. We find that single-colony persistence cannot occur. Instead, dispersal of bats between colonies, combined with a high frequency of immunizing nonlethal infections, is necessary to maintain rabies virus at levels consistent with field observations. Simulations show that the strong spatial component to transmission dynamics could explain the failure of bat culls to eliminate rabies and suggests that geographic coordination of control efforts might reduce transmission to humans and domestic animals. These findings offer spatial dynamics as a mechanism for rabies persistence in bats that might be important for the understanding and control of other bat-borne pathogens.