The importance of the common vampire bat Desmodus rotundus for the transmission of the rabies virus does not lie solely in its ability to transmit this disease to other mammals, but also in its capacity to adapt to environmental and climatic changes, granting them a wide geographical distribution. Control of this disease is currently based on culling of the vampire bat and vaccination of the livestock. A transmission model incorporating geographic and behavioral determinants of the vampire bat was proposed to direct and optimize the epidemiological surveillance and control of livestock rabies. This model was built using a bimodal network connecting 260 vampire bat roosts among themselves (roost-roost-network) and with 1557 farms (roost-farm network) in eastern Sao Paulo State, Brazil. These roosts were grouped in 9 communities, some very interconnected, and some not and the farms were grouped in 14 communities. From 2013 to 2017, 44 livestock rabies outbreaks occurred in the area, circulating among the farm communities during the entire period, with possible introductions from neighboring areas. Based on the network and environment parameters, it was possible to reasonably predict both the roosts' occupation type (harem, bachelor, overnight and empty) and livestock rabies outbreak occurrence. The network approach brings light to the importance of phylogenetic studies of bats and rabies virus. Finally, the understanding of the interactions between bats and their feeding sources, influenced by the environment, allows to establish more precise surveillance and control measures and, ultimately, with a lower cost-benefit ratio of these actions.
Keywords: Desmodus rotundus; Livestock; Network; Rabies; Surveillance; Vampire bat.
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