National borders effectively halt the spread of rabies: the current rabies epidemic in China is dislocated from cases in neighboring countries.

ABSTRACT: China has seen a massive resurgence of rabies cases in the last 15 years with more than 25,000 human fatalities. Initial cases were reported in the southwest but are now reported in almost every province. There have been several phylogenetic investigations into the origin and spread of the virus within China but few reports investigating the impact of the epidemic on neighboring countries. We therefore collected nucleoprotein sequences from China and South East Asia and investigated their phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationship. Our results indicate that within South East Asia, isolates mainly cluster according to their geographic origin. We found evidence of sporadic exchange of strains between neighboring countries, but it appears that the major strain responsible for the current C

SUBMITTER: Guo Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3561166 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature