Phylogeography Analysis Reveals Rabies Epidemiology, Evolution, and Transmission in the Philippines
Rabies, caused by rabies virus, is a severe public health problem in the Philippines, where animal rabies epidemiology had been extensively investigated, but little is known about the national epidemiologic situations since 2010. Here, we report a 12-year nationwide animal rabies surveillance with systematic phylogenetic analysis, in which 353 whole genomes of rabies viruses collected from animal rabies cases between 2018 and 2022 were obtained. The phylogenetic and spatial-temporal evolutionary analyses showed that rabies viruses in the Philippines were exclusively classified into the SEA4 subclade within the Asian clade, but forming three major geographically specific lineages. Intra-island spread predominates the rabies transmission in three major island regions, while the inter-island transmission, between major island regions, is very limited, likely due to ocean barriers. Overall, our findings have provided the most comprehensive dataset on the infected animal species, geographic distribution, transmission dynamics, genetic diversity of rabies viruses, and transmission risk factors, thus established a basis to support WOAH-endorsed national control program for dog-mediated rabies in the Philippines.
Authors
- Changchun Tu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8134-7502)
- Wenjie Gong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7239-7188)
- Jeffrey L. Cruz
- Li‐Qun Fang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4981-1483)
- Tao Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1908-2926)
- Jianfeng Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7625-0570)
- Rachel R Azul
- Yao Tian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9107-5269)
- Yuyang Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7164-700X)
- Yan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6359-2615)
- Ye Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3849-2309)
- Riva Marie Gonzales
- Sheng Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-6468-4809)
- Rainelda C. Dela Peña
- Liang Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5220-4748)
Institutions
- Bureau of Plant Industry (PH)
- Jilin University (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College (CN)
- Academy of Military Medical Sciences (CN)
- Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CN)
- Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CN)
- Yangzhou University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Molecular Biology and Evolution
- Published
- 2025-02-01
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf007
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Rabies epidemiology and control
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.07
Funders
- World Health Organization
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Philippine Council for Health Research and Development
- National Key Research and Development Program of China