Rabies surveillance

In 2003, active bat surveillance programmes were initiated in Scotland and England (funded by Defra and Scottish Natural Heritage).

Daubenton’s and serotine bats, two common bat species in the UK, are routinely captured, ringed, sampled and released.

Blood is taken and tested for the presence of antibodies specific to EBLV. Mouth swabs are collected and the saliva is tested by RT-PCR and virus isolation to determine if EBLV is present in the saliva of healthy bats.

You can read more about ways of diagnosing rabies on our Diagnosis pages.

Finally, a very small wing biopsy is taken for bat speciation.

On 21 May 2005, Defra released the preliminary test results from the 2004 work in England carried out by our group. This indicated a prevalence of antibodies to EBLV-2 in Daubenton's bats in England of about 4.2%.

However, infectious virus has not been detected in the saliva of any bat tested under the active surveillance programme. Further work on EBLV presence in England is ongoing as part of a three year study.