Examination of bats for rabies in Styria

Since rabies was diagnosed in bats in 11 European countries during the last decades, and there are no data published for Austria, we have looked for r abies virus and Viral antigen in 40 bats, originating from the federal stat e of Styria, which had died spontaneously. All proved negative. In addition , we present in this paper the epidemiology of bat rabies in Europe, and di scuss a potential risk associated with handling of European bats.