Preliminary studies of the latest outbreak that killed at least 38 Warao Indians in northeastern Venezuela indicate that it may be a type of infectious rabies transmitted by bites from bats, according to indigenous leaders and researchers from the University of California at Berkeley.

Though laboratory investigations have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms include fever, body pains, tingling in the feet followed by progressive paralysis point to rabies, said the husband-and-wife team of anthropologist Charles Briggs and public health specialist Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs. The victims also had an extreme fear of water coupled with convulsions before death.

At least 38 Warao Indians have died since June 2007, and at least 16 have died since the start of June 2008, according to a report the Berkeley researchers. The husband-wife duo is known for their research on a cholera outbreak that killed 500 people in Venezuela in the early 1990s.

Rabies is an infectious viral disease that affects the nervous system of humans and other mammals. People get rabies from the bite of an animal with rabies (a rabid animal). Any wild mammal, like a raccoon, skunk, fox, coyote, or bat, can have rabies and transmit it to people.