Plagues, Pestilences and Diseases
13 August 2010 Last updated at 03:05 ET
Peru battles rabid vampire bats after 500 people bitten
BBC - Vampire bat captured in Brazil, 2005 Vampire bats feed on the
blood of mammals while they sleep
Peru's health ministry has sent emergency teams to a remote Amazon
region to battle an outbreak of rabies spread by vampire bats.
Four children in the Awajun indigenous tribe died after being bitten by
the bloodsucking mammals.
Health workers have given rabies vaccine to more than 500 people who
have also been attacked.
Some experts have linked mass vampire bat attacks on people in the
Amazon to deforestation.
The rabies outbreak is focused on the community of Urakusa in the
north-eastern Peruvian Amazon, close to the border with Ecuador.
The indigenous community appealed for help after being unable to
explain the illness that had killed the children.
The health ministry said it had sent three medical teams to treat and
vaccinate people who had been bitten.
Most of the affected population had now been vaccinated, it said,
although a few had refused treatment.
Vampire bats usually feed on wildlife or livestock, but are sometimes
known to turn to humans for food, particularly in areas where their
rainforest habitat has been destroyed.
Some local people have suggested this latest outbreak of attacks may be
linked to the unusually low temperatures the Peruvian Amazon in recent
years.