Highlights • Two cases of rabies among humans were detected using a broad-range PCR analysis followed by high throughput sequencing. • Diagnoses were subsequently confirmed using a fluorescent ...antibody test, an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and a mouse inoculation test. • Two strains of rabies virus were isolated and characterized using virological methods. • The entire genome of each strain was sequenced.
—An analysis of changes in the role of mammals in the infection of humans with hydrophobia in Russia for the period 1534–2017 is presented. Human deaths when dealing with dogs have continually been ...recorded since the 16th century. The share of dogs in human hydrophobia infection reached 85% from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. In the 1960s and 1970s, it decreased to 30–35%, but in the early 21st century, it increased again to 43%. The role of cats in infecting humans has been reliably traced since the late 19th century, and it has increased from 2 to 18% over the last 130 years. The epidemic value of foxes is cyclical. In the late 18th century, fox rabies in Russia was not known. People died from hydrophobia after fox bites in the early 19th century, but since 1825 cases of human hydrophobia due to contacts with foxes were no more recorded. Foxes again started infecting people only from the 1940s. In some years from the 1970s to the 1990s, foxes were the source of hydrophobia in 50–52% cases. In the 21st century, the role of foxes in human infection has decreased to 16%, but the value of that predator in animal infection increased to almost 50%. The wolf has infected people throughout the historical record. Before World War II, the epidemic value of the wolf reached 19%, but since the second half of the 20th century and in the 21st century, the death of people caused by wolf bites has varied within 2–7% cases. The raccoon dog started infecting people after World War II (0.4%). Its epidemic role has slowly increased and reached 11% in the 21st century. The corsak, the badger, the marten, the ferret, and the Arctic Fox rarely infect people, but they have participated in the epidemic process for at least 50 years, while the Arctic Fox has for 100 years. Over the territory of Russia, only two cases of human death have been recorded from hydrophobia after a bat bite, one in 1985 and the other in 2008. Cattle have infected humans throughout the observable past five centuries, but not too often, 0.3–2% cases. Small livestock, horses, and pigs have been extremely rare as an epidemic danger for at least the last 130 years. In Russia, people have never been infected with rabies received from insectivores, while that obtained from rodents has been recorded only three times: two from gophers and one from a squirrel.
Objective: to analyze the rate of treatment demand after contact with animals in the Omsk region. Materials and methods: we used data of rate of treatment demand of Omsk region population due to ...injuries caused by animals in 2009–2022. A descriptive-evaluative epidemiological research method was used. The characteristics of injuries from domestic owned (dogs and cats with an owner), domestic stray (stray dogs and cats) and wild (including synanthropic rodents) animals are analyzed. Results: in 2009–2022 in the Omsk region, 65142 people were injured by animals, which amounted to an average of 4653 complaints per year. Appeals from children aged 0–17 years old amounted to 36,5%, and from children aged 0–14 — 30,2% of the total. The leading role belongs to injuries caused by domestic animals — 67,1%, and of these, in 75,4% of cases — by dogs. An increase in calls regarding attacks by stray dogs has been established and is extremely pronounced regarding attacks by stray cats. The number of calls regarding bites from wild animals, namely squirrels and wild and synanthropic rodents, has increased significantly. Conclusions: In order to reduce the frequency of dangerous contacts with wild animals, in particular with squirrels, as well as with pets, it is necessary to carry out sanitary educational work with the population, especially children. The issue of installing warning boards in parks with a ban on hand-feeding squirrels, and installing feeding tables and feeders should be considered.
The existing methods for determining the species identity of shelter hosts and taking censuses of the natural hosts of the rabies virus (foxes, corsacs, two badger species, raccoon dogs, and wolves) ...have been improved during a spring–summer inspection of burrows of these predators. The field work was carried out in the years 1976–2011 at 42 census sites with a total area of 3582 km
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in natural foci of rabies within 14 administrative territories of the Russian Federation: Amur, Astrakhan, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Saratov, and Tula oblasts, Altai krai, Transbaikal region, and Khabarovsk krai, and the republics of Tyva and Altai. In total, 111 censuses were conducted and 3920 burrows of these animals were inspected. Burrows built by individuals of the same species could later be used or reconstructed and used by other species. Therefore, it was impossible to compile a dichotomous key to differences in the characters of the actual use of a specific shelter by a certain species in a given year during the research. The exception is the size of side holes of the fox and corsac that were dug by these predators in the first year of their settlement. Clear differences were observed only between the burrows of foxes, corsacs, and wolves in the presence of excrement and food debris near their shelters, in contrast to the unpolluted burrows of badgers and raccoon dogs. Burrows of foxes, corsacs, and wolves could alternately be occupied by different host species in subsequent years. It was possible to identify reliably the carnivorous species that occupied the shelter only in May to early June by the size of excrement of young and adult individuals. Shelters of badgers and raccoon dogs significantly differed only in paw prints and the color of fallen hair during the replacement of one species by the other in a burrow. It is necessary to use a set of key characters for the species identification of shelter hosts in each particular case. During primary censuses, it is extremely laborious to identify and map the territorial distribution of burrows. However, a high-quality registration of burrow hosts in the first year of the study made it possible to reproduce registrations in many subsequent years with low material and time costs. It is recommended to use this corrected methodology both for the real-time counting of the relative and absolute numbers of the main natural distributors of the rabies virus and for analysis of their intra- and interspecific biotic relationships. In the natural foci of rabies, this technique makes it possible to record not only the abundance of predators but also their territorial distribution and concentrations near burrow shelters, which is important during oral vaccinations of predators against rabies.
Rabies virus is endemic to Russia, among other countries. It is therefore critical to develop a high-quality and high-precision diagnostic procedure for the control and prevention of infection.
The ...main objective of the research presented here was to develop a reliable RT-qPCR assay for rabies diagnostics.
For this purpose, a RABV strains from various biological and geographical origins were used. In addition, rabies-positive and rabies-negative samples, as well as nucleic acids from other viruses and DNA extracted from the brain tissues of mice, dogs, cats, bats and humans, were studied using the developed assay.
The analytical sensitivity of the assay, as assessed using armored recombinant positive control dilutions, was 103 copies/ml, and the sensitivity measured using characterized strains was between 0.1 LD50/ml and 1.0 LD50/ml. A broad range of RNA from RABV strains circulating in different regions of Russia, as well as RNA from RABV-positive primary brain samples from 81 animals and two humans, was detected using the developed assay. No false-positive or false-negative results were obtained.
Given that high analytical and diagnostic sensitivities and a high specificity were verified for this assay, it has high potential as a screening test that may be suitable for the epizootiological monitoring of animals and for the fast postmortem diagnosis of rabies.
•Reliable qRT-PCR assay for RABV detection was developed and evaluated•Analytical sensitivity of the assay was 103 copies/ml, and the sensitivity measured using characterized strains was between 0.1 LD50/1ml and 1.0 LD50/1ml.•Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity were both 100%
ABSTRACT We have carried out photometric observations of the occultation of the star HIP 97157 by asteroid (41) Daphne on 2013 October 25 with the 40 cm telescope of the Global MASTER Robotic Net, ...located in the Tunka Valley near Irkutsk. We have obtained the photometric drift-scan of the occultation in broadband visible light. The photometric curve of the occultation of the star by asteroid Daphne was obtained. From analysis of this curve we have determined the length of the "chord" of the asteroid in the direction of its motion corresponding to the time interval during which the asteroid completely "screened" the star's light: a 146.86 0.24 km. Also, assuming that the angular diameter of the star is equal to d 0 002, we have determined the angles between the velocity vector of the asteroid and its two opposite edges (considered as straight lines) where the disappearance of the star and its reappearance occurred: for the front edge of the asteroid and for its opposite edge. So these edges of the asteroid are inclined toward each other at an angle of about 8°.
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