News Animals

Vaccines may help bats fight white nose syndrome

Oral inoculation would spread from bat to bat through nuzzles

bats hibernating

HIBERNATION HANG Hibernating bats in North America have been severely hit by white nose syndrome. New vaccines could improve their odds.

Nancy Heaslip, USGS

By Helen Thompson

Oral vaccines could give wild bats a better chance at surviving white nose syndrome, the fungal disease that has ravaged bat colonies in North America. In lab tests conducted on captured little brown bats, vaccination led to fewer infected bats developing lesions and more of the bats surviving, researchers report May 1 in Scientific Reports.