First Indication of People Naturally Protected Against Rabies Found in Remote Amazonian Communities Regularly Exposed to Vampire Bats

ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2012) — Challenging conventional wisdom that rabies infections are 100 percent fatal unless immediately treated, scientists studying remote populations in the Peruvian Amazon at risk of rabies from vampire bats found 11 percent of those tested showed protection against the disease, with only one person reporting a prior rabies vaccination. Ten percent appear to have survived exposure to the virus without any medical intervention. The findings from investigators at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were published August 2in the August 2012 issue of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

• The overwhelming majority of rabies exposures that proceed to infections are fatal. 
• Rabies experts estimate the disease kills 55,000 people each year in Africa and Asia alone, and appears to be on the rise in China, the former Soviet Republics, southern Africa, and Central and South America. /美國每年仍有一例。
• In general, people who believe they may have been exposed to rabies are advised to immediately seek treatment which involves post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) -- a series of injections -- to prevent the exposure from causing an active infection. PEP能100%有效抑制發病。
• vampire bats -- the most common "natural reservoir" for the disease in Latin America 
• "We all still agree that nearly everyone who is found to be experiencing clinical symptoms of rabies dies," Gilbert said. "But we may be missing cases from isolated high-risk areas where people are exposed to rabies virus and, for whatever reason, they don't develop disease." 所有經歷臨床症狀的人都死了。但無可否認，高危險群裡有人並未發病。
• The vampire bats can use their extremely sharp teeth and the anticoagulant that naturally occurs in their saliva (appropriately referred to as "draculin") to feed on a sleeping person without awakening them.
• if it turns out there are distinct populations of people with "complete or relative resistance to rabies," there could be the potential to use whole genome sequencing to help develop new, life-saving treatments for rabies infections. 

rabies: 狂犬病：是無救的病？untreatable infectious diseases
populations in the Peruvian Amazon
anticoagulant - saliva - "draculin"