On July 17 the Council of Agriculture made its initial report to the World Organization for Animal Health concerning the rabies situation in Taiwan. In the pathogen field it had identified the cause of the disease as “Lyssavirus,” entering “not typed” in the blood type field.
By Aug. 1, when the council issued its fifth report, it identified the blood type as “RABV,” which is the rabies virus. The designation RABV generally refers to the strain of rabies that is fatal to carnivores: dogs, cats and humans. It is unknown on what basis the council decided to revise the report in this way.
Since May, when the first case of rabies infection in a ferret-badger was discovered, until today, with cases of rabies infection limited to central, southern and eastern Taiwan, there have been no cases of rabies infection in dogs, cats or humans. Isn’t that rather strange?
According to the Analysis of the Taiwan Isolation Rabies Genetic Sequencing issued by the council, the similarities between the rabies virus in ferret-badgers and the strain found in China is under 90 percent, so it should be regarded as a different virus. Yet this lab says that the virus is closest to the one found in China.
Differences in the nucleoprotein genetic sequences of all Lyssavirus strains can be used to determine where the virus exists. Changes in the glycoprotein sequence can be used to evaluate the strain’s antigenicity — the ability of an antigen to bind with an antibody — toxicity and pathogenicity, which is the potential of a virus to cause a disease.
However, the glycoprotein sequence provided by the council lab was too short. It did not show the antigenic determinants for the virus’ antigenicity or pathogenicity.
At the moment, we can only make a comparison of these two limited protein sequences, and speculate that the strain of the virus found infecting ferret-
badgers in Taiwan is a different type to that found in China, which means the ferret-badger virus here is not the dog rabies virus that everyone imagines it to be. The council should look into this.
The conditions of the so-called rabies outbreak in Taiwan are increasingly clear: Up until Aug. 5 the virus had only been found in 44 ferret-badgers and one shrew. As I understand it, there have been many incidences of dogs being bitten by ferret-badgers in the areas in which the latter have tested positive for the virus, and of dogs coming home with ferret-badgers clamped in their jaws, and yet we are still to have one case in which a dog has been found to be infected.
Also, according to provisions by the Centers for Disease Control for ferret-badger bites or scratches, anyone who has been bitten or scratched by a ferret-badger over the past year can be given free rabies vaccinations.
As of Aug. 5, a total of 815 people qualified for the vaccination, of which 27 were actually bitten by one of the animals. That figure could be lower than the actual amount of people who have been bitten, and many were bitten several months ago, but no cases of rabies infection in people have emerged yet. It is quite clear that the ferret-badger virus in Taiwan is not the same as the rabies virus that is fatal to dogs and humans.
The glycoprotein genetic sequence provided by the council is too short to be useful in determining whether the rabies vaccination currently used in Taiwan offers protection against the virus found in the ferret-badgers.
In 2010, researchers in China discovered with rabies viruses taken from ferret-badgers that several isolation strains were of low pathogenicity or had no toxicity at all. Lab rats were injected in their brains with large amounts of the virus, but they did not develop the disease.
The council has yet to provide any data to establish whether the nature or pathogenicity of the virus found in Taiwan’s ferret-badger population means that it will harm dogs, cats or people, let alone to clarify the efficacy of vaccinating dogs and cats against it.
According to the Central Epidemic Command Center, there will be plenty of vaccines available by late this month, with 1.13 million for dogs and cats and 47,000 for humans. Fortunately, the pathogenicity of the ferret-badger virus in Taiwan for dogs, cats and people is very low or non-existent.
Are the vaccines being provided at the state’s expense to prevent “genuine” rabies useful against the ferret-badger virus? My feeling is that these are just vaccinations being administered to give peace of mind.
Liou Pei-pai is a former director of the Taiwan Animal Health Research Institute.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Elbridge Colby, America’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, is the most influential voice on defense strategy in the Second Trump Administration. For insight into his thinking, one could do no better than read his thoughts on the defense of Taiwan which he gathered in a book he wrote in 2021. The Strategy of Denial, is his contemplation of China’s rising hegemony in Asia and on how to deter China from invading Taiwan. Allowing China to absorb Taiwan, he wrote, would open the entire Indo-Pacific region to Chinese preeminence and result in a power transition that would place America’s prosperity
A few weeks ago in Kaohsiung, tech mogul turned political pundit Robert Tsao (曹興誠) joined Western Washington University professor Chen Shih-fen (陳時奮) for a public forum in support of Taiwan’s recall campaign. Kaohsiung, already the most Taiwanese independence-minded city in Taiwan, was not in need of a recall. So Chen took a different approach: He made the case that unification with China would be too expensive to work. The argument was unusual. Most of the time, we hear that Taiwan should remain free out of respect for democracy and self-determination, but cost? That is not part of the usual script, and
All 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安), formerly of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), survived recall elections against them on Saturday, in a massive loss to the unprecedented mass recall movement, as well as to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) that backed it. The outcome has surprised many, as most analysts expected that at least a few legislators would be ousted. Over the past few months, dedicated and passionate civic groups gathered more than 1 million signatures to recall KMT lawmakers, an extraordinary achievement that many believed would be enough to remove at
Behind the gloating, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) must be letting out a big sigh of relief. Its powerful party machine saved the day, but it took that much effort just to survive a challenge mounted by a humble group of active citizens, and in areas where the KMT is historically strong. On the other hand, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) must now realize how toxic a brand it has become to many voters. The campaigners’ amateurism is what made them feel valid and authentic, but when the DPP belatedly inserted itself into the campaign, it did more harm than good. The
RSS