Partner 5: P5

Participating Organisation: Parc Científic de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Research Laboratory: Unitat de Toxicologia Experimental i Ecotoxicologia
Principal Scientist: Dr J. Serra-Cobo
Other Scientists: Dr. M. Borràs, Mrs. B. Amengual, M. M. Lopez

Role and contribution:

• To coordinate the workpackage 2 (Investigation of the potential of bats as reservoirs of rabies).

• To obtain serum samples and to collect dead bats found in shelters.

• To band bats to carry out their monitoring (seasonal movements, mortality rate, antibodies evolution).

• To investigate the epidemiology of bat lyssavirus in North Africa.

• To document the incidence, the prevalence, the morbidity and mortality rates observed in North African bat colonies.

• To contribute to ecological information about positives bat species.

• To determine the bat species which may constitute the infectious links between Africa and the South-West of Europe.

Qualifications and experience:

Dr Serra-Cobo team has studied bat rabies in Spain since 1990. This team has a large experience in ecological bat studies and in ecological modelling. Dr. M. Borràs is the director of the Toxicology Unity and he work in the relationship between rabies episode and contamination. Mrs. B. Amengual has a large experience in molecular biology of European bat lyssaviruses (she has worked 20 months on this subject in the Rabies Unit, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France). Dr. J. Serra-Cobo is expertise in populations ecology of vertebrates and bat lyssaviruses. He co-ordinated the project concerning the consequences of human and bat interaction on lyssavirus infection in bat colonies in Spain since 1990 and is responsible of an investigation about lyssavirus infections in bats in Balearic Islands. He has 20 years of experience in ecology of bat populations. M. M. Lopez is a Ph D student of Dr. Serra-Cobo. He has experience in cave explorations and in demography of bats populations.


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