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Published Date: 2012-06-07 01:58:03
Subject: PRO/AH> Rabies, bovine - Peru (03): (HU) susp
Archive Number: 20120607.1158728

RABIES, BOVINE - PERU (03): (HULLAGA) SUSPECTED
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Date: Wed 6 Jun 2012
Source: Voces [in Spanish, trans. Mod.TY, edited]
http://www.diariovoces.com.pe/?p=74114

According to a complaint given by Manuel Puscan Munoz, a cattle owner from Nuevo San Andres, Saposoa, 8 cattle have died in his small farm due to possible bovine rabies. This outbreak also includes other cattle that have died in the San Andres and Montevideo hamlets. The operators of small herds in these areas are worried and alarmed about what is happening to their cattle.

This report mobilized personnel from the Saposoa Agricultural Agency, headed by Ing. Abertano Cardenas Rengifo, who immediately informed personnel from the National Animal Health Service (SENASA) in Juangui so they could mobilize that sector and take samples from these dead cattle for testing in the Zoonoses Laboratory in Lima to determine the cause of deaths in these beef cattle.

The director of the Saposoa Agricultural Agency, Ing. Cardenas Rengifo, told Voces: "Upon learning of these cases of dead cattle in the Nuevo San Andres area, I immediately coordinated with the SENASA-Tarapoto director, biologist Francisco Palomino Palomino, and sent a veterinarian to that area to take samples from the dead cattle, which have now been sent to the Zoonoses Laboratory in Lima, since in our area, we do not have this type of [diagnostic] laboratory. During this week, they will be sending us the results to determine whether this disease [rabies] is causing the deaths of these animals in Saposoa. Because of this situation, I am calling on all the cattle owners to comply with the vaccination campaigns for their cattle, but they do not wish to spend money on these biological products, and when they lose their cattle, they just now realize that they need to vaccinate, but it's too late. We have qualified technical people who can do these vaccination campaigns, authorized by SENASA. Now, I await the results of the Zoonoses Laboratory to come out positive [for rabies], so I would have to declare the area in quarantine," said the [animal health] professional.

[byline: Carlos Velasquez Sanchez]

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[If these cases prove positive for rabies virus infection, the origin is most likely from the bite of the common vampire bat, _Desmodus rotundus_.

These owners of small herds are probably of very modest means, and the loss of any animal is a significant economic blow. However, failure to vaccinate against rabies where these bats are common, as is the case in the Amazon River Basin, is false economy, as the SENASA director pointed out. Since rabies in cattle is usually a dead-end infection, it is not clear why a quarantine would be declared, unless it is to prevent movement of animals during the rabies incubation period or sending meat from infected animals into a market for human consumption. There have been several instances of vampire bat-transmitted rabies to people and animals in Peru this year and last (2012 and 2011).

Saposoa is one of 6 districts in the Huallaga province of the San Martin Department in the San Martin Region of Amazonian Peru. A map showing the location of the Saposoa district can be accessed at http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distrito_de_Saposoa and a HealthMap/ProMED-mail interactive map showing the location of the Huallaga province at http://healthmap.org/r/2wKw. - Mod.TY]

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