Twenty-three people, including 18 children and teenagers, have been killed in a human rabies outbreak in northeast Brazil in the past two months, the Health Ministry said Tuesday.

The disease is transmitted to humans by blood-eating bats, according to the ministry.

All these cases were reported in the rural areas of the northeastern state of Maranhao, said the ministry. The first death happened in August, it said.

Many houses in marshlands do not have screens in the windows and have large holes in the floor and ceiling, making it easy for vampire bats to break in, it said. All the cases took place at night.

The state of Maranhao borders the state of Para, where a human-rabies epidemic transmitted by bats occurred in 2004.

Ten vaccination and five bat-catching teams are working in the region to try to prevent the spreading of the disease.

From 1986 to 2004, a total of 703 people have been reported killed by rabies in Brazil and 84 of them were in Maranhao, said the ministry.

Continued deforestation of the Amazon region has sent thousands of displaced vampire bats carrying rabies fleeing across northern Brazil.

The rabies virus, which infects the central nervous system of humans, can cause death within a day from the onset of symptoms.

Source: Xinhua