Duvenhage Virus: The New Rabies

ProMED-mail reported last week on the death of a 77-year-old South African man who contracted Duvenhage virus from a bat scratch. Duvenhage is a Lyssavirus related to rabies:

Duvenhage virus was 1st discovered in 1970 when a man developed fatal rabies-like disease after being bitten indoors at night by an unidentified insectivorous bat about 80 km from the present incident. The only 2 other isolations of Duvenhage virus were made from bats: in 1981, it was obtained from a _Miniopterus schreibersi_ insectivorous bat which had been caught in daylight by a cat in Makhado town (formerly Louis Trichardt) in Limpopo province, about 250 km to the north of the present incident, and in 1986, the virus was obtained from an insectivorous bat, _Nycteris thebaica_, caught near a mine shaft across the border from Limpopo province in Zimbabwe.