Molecular detection of flaviviruses in bat flies Of bats from Kelantan and Terengganu, Malaysia.

An abstract of the research paper presented to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in partial requirement on the course DVT 5436 - Research Project.
Flaviviruses are the most important pathogenic diseases in human and animal population that are transmitted by insect vectors to the hosts. Most Flaviviruses are host specific but also can infect a wide range of species including bats. Some of the flaviviruses isolated from bats are medically important vector-transmitted arboviruses such as St. Louis encephalitis virus (SLEV) and Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV). Currently there is no study conducted on the presence of Flavivirus in bat and its vectors in Malaysia. Therefore, this study was conducted to detect the presence of flaviviruses in bat flies in Kelantan and Terengganu, Malaysia. Thirty-five bat flies’ samples from 106 bat flies were pooled and identified based on bat species in the same regions, the types of ectoparasites, and the morphological characteristics of the ectoparasites. A reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using published universal primers for Flavivirus were used to detect the presence of flaviviruses in the bat flies. The results were negative for all the 35 pooled samples of the bat flies. The findings of this research may serve some useful information regarding the prevalence of flaviviruses in bats’flies in Kelantan and Terengganu, Malaysia. Further investigation using more sample sizes, insect genus and locations are needed to increase the detection of flaviviruses in bats’ ectoparasites in East Coast, Malaysia.
Keywords: Flaviviruses, Bat flies, RT-PCR, Kelantan and Terengganu