Spatial epidemiology of bat-borne rabies in Colombia

Abstract

In their article, "Geographic distribution of wild rabies risk and evaluation of the factors associated with its incidence in Colombia, 1982–2010," Brito and colleagues (1) analyzed the spatial distribution of bat-borne rabies in Colombia and showed an association of occurrence of rabies outbreaks with climatic tendencies. The authors also identified risk clusters for rabies based on modeled potential distributions. While we appreciate this work, which fills knowledge gaps regarding the epidemiology of vampire-borne rabies in Latin America, we are also concerned because some of the data presented merits re-evaluation and correction.