Bats have recently been shown to harbor several infectious agents of human disease, including SARS-like coronaviruses, henipaviruses and filoviruses. Tacaribe virus, an arenavirus that can cause hemorrhagic fever in humans, has only been isolated from fruit bats (Artibeus spp.) captured in Trinidad. It is unknown if these bats are a natural reservoir of Tacaribe virus, but we have demonstrated that low-dose infection can cause persistent infection for at least 45 days without conspicuous symptoms of disease. In addition, high-dose infection causes a fatal disease that has some similarity to the South American hemorrhagic fevers that are caused by other arenaviruses, including neurological manifestations and hemorrhaging. This project will detail the pathological and immunological responses of Jamaican fruit bats experimentally infected with Tacaribe virus in an effort to determine if the species can be a reservoir and a suitable animal model for arenavirus pathogenesis.
Arenaviruses can cause fatal hemorrhagic fevers in humans. Little is known about the pathogenesis of these viruses and the work proposed here will examine the pathology and immunology of one such virus, Tacaribe virus, in its suspect reservoir animal, the Jamaican fruit bat.
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