In America, some people fear small rodents can carry rabies and infect others with the virus. This is utterly untrue for classic rabies and most lyssaviruses. But there is one known to infect small rodents: Mokola.
There are many publications on the Mokola virus available on the internet but most are super dry and boring with constant scientific jargon—one has to know the lingo to read them. Even Wikipedia’s page doesn’t do justice to the oddities of this lyssavirus!
This bugger of a virus is the redheaded stepchild of lyssaviruses. For one, it is unresponsive to the rabies vaccine. Since it is relatively rare and only in Africa, no research has been done to create a vaccine for it. The lack of a vaccine already existing is necessary to make a diabolical virus in a fiction story!
Rabies-vaccinated indoor housecats in middle-class Africa have been the biggest reported victims of this virus. An infected mouse comes out into the open, plays paralyzed, the cat attacks, and the mouse lands the bite—bada boom! The cat grows rabid and bites a little girl.
Another weird thing about Mokola is regarding mosquitos. To quote the author of the Mokola page on Wikipedia (revised as of 2024), “Unlike other lyssaviruses, MOKV is able to replicate inside mosquito cells in vitro, suggesting that insects may be implicated in MOKV transmission.*” MOKV is the abbreviation for Mokola. Hmm, this is fancy talk for insects, such as mosquitoes, may have spread this bugger…yikes! That’s worse than malaria and West Nile. Albeit, it would explain why so many ancient civilizations made references easily understood as rabies-mad people.
Mokola bizarrely pops up in seriously far-flung places with no known connection between the areas. Africa is a massively big continent and the virus has appeared in almost every region. Not huge outbreaks but just popping up. Field researchers are begging for more field research because there is only one way this can happen—it’s a lot more prevelent in the wild to have reached these ridiculously far distances.
Keep in mind that R140 is not Mokola. It shares the bizarre traits with Mokola and it is closer related to this virus than it is to classic rabies.
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