To understand whether the bats inhabiting in Korea play role as a hosts Rickettsia that cause acute febrile diseases, a total number of 797 bats of 9 species were collected from seven provinces in Korea from 1989 and tested for the presence of
antibodies to Rickettsia by means of immunfluorescent antibody(IFA) technique.
@ES The results are summarized as follow.
@EN 1. Total 797 captured bats were classified into 9 different species with the following distribution. They were Rhinolophus ferrumequlnum, Eptesicus serotinus, Miniopterus sehreibersii, Vespertilio superans, Myotis mystatinus, Murina
leucogaster,
Myotis formosus, Myotis macrodactylus and Plecotus auritus with numbers and rates of 423(52.74%), 291(36.28%), 47(5.86), 28(3.49%), 8(1.00%). 1(0.12%) and 1(0.12%), respectively. The predominant species of the bats was Rhinolophus ferrumequinum
with
52.74% of the captured.
2. Rickettsial antibodies in the bats were immunologically tested. The outcomes were that Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Eptescus serotinus showed presence of antibodies of Rickettsia tsutsugamushi, Rickettsia typhi, Rickettsia sibirica and
Rickettsia
thai tick typhus-118, and Vespertilio superans possessed antibodies of R. tsutsugamushi and R. typhi while Miniopterus schreibersii showed only antibody of R. tsutsugamushi.
3. The positive rates of rickettsial antibodies were predominantly 20.45%(163 m 797 bats) of R. thai tick typhus-118, and 12.42%(163) of R. tsutsugamushi followed by 5.90%(47), 4.26%(21) of R. typhi and R. thai tick typhus-118, respectively.
4. Seasonal prevalence of rickettsial antibodies by species were R. tsutsgamushi with 21.81% and 16.22% in autumn and winter. Antibody of R. typhi was also found 6.91% in autumn and 8.11% in winter, 18.18% of R. siberica antibody were found in
spring
while 10.2% of that in winter. In the meantime, antibody of R. thai tick typhus-118 was prevalent throughout the year. It means that certain species specific antibodies are very closely related with weather.
It could be concluded through the study that certain species of bats inhabiting in Korea play a definite role as the host animals of certain species of Rickettsia.
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