One More Piece in the VACV Ecological Puzzle: Could Peridomestic Rodents Be the Link between Wildlife and Bovine Vaccinia Outbreaks in Brazil?
Figure 5
A hypothetical model of the VACV transmission cycle.
Peridomestic rodents could promote the transmission of VACV between wild animals and cattle or humans, since they circulate both in farm buildings and their surroundings. This diagram was proposed based on published epidemiological and laboratory data on VACV and the behavioral characteristics of Brazilian rodents and wild animals. Solid lines indicate experimentally determined data, and dashed lines represent hypothetical propositions still under investigation.