Video: Global Disease Detectives - Clues From a Bat Cave

CDC global health leadership brings the world's leading public health experts to a Guatemala cave, where rabid bats threaten human health. These examples of CDC at work in the world help protect America and all from disease threats that respect no borders.

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Transcript

PATRICIA JULIAO: Bats are found all over the world, and they've been associated with different diseases all over the world, so what information we find here will give us an idea of what sort of infections they can harbor and what is the likelihood of those infections being transmitted to humans.

KIM LINDBLADE: And of these new emerging infections, Zoonotic diseases play a huge role. And Zoonotic diseases are those that are transmitted from animals to humans.

DAVID MORAN: Right now, right here, we are trying to get some samples from the bats, because there's an outbreak right now -- there's a current outbreak of rabies in cattle in this area. We find bats in the net. We check what kind of species, because there are some protected species. We take and put in some small bags, and then we took all the captured animals and go to a facility here in the village. We anesthetize the animals and take blood samples and samples from ectoparasites.

KIM LINDBLADE: The reason for having the program here is to understand more about the kinds of infections and diseases that are occurring in Central America, which helps us to understand and prepare better in the United States, to counter -- to prevent and to treat -- these important infectious diseases.

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