Erratum—Vol. 14, No. 9

samples from 3 of 4 Myotis species captured in the same location in 2006 and 2007. A relatively high prevalence of henipavirus antibody was also found among Rousettus leschenaul-tia samples from Hainan Province in 2007. Notably, Yunnan and Hainan are both located in southern China. Although pteropid bats are not found in China, these data suggest henipavi-ruses could be introduced into China by other susceptible bat species that overlap their habitat with pteropid bats in neighboring countries. Several possibilities may explain the failure to detect neutralizing antibodies. One might be the unique immune response among those nonpteropid bats, which results in a low level of neutralizing antibodies that are diffi cult to detect in the current assay systems. Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, >1 Nipah-like viruses could be circulating among the bat populations sampled in this study, producing antibodies that cross-react with, but do not neutralize, the prototype Malaysian NiV virus isolate. This phenomenon has been observed previously by our group for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)–like viruses in horseshoe bats, whose sera cross-reacted with, but did not neutralize , the SARS virus in humans (10). Obtaining serologic evidence of viruses in bat populations is typically more successful as a screening tool than either nucleic acid based assays or virus isolation; this is likely attributable to the often low-level of virus replication, the transient nature of the infection in bats, or both. The inability to amplify NiV sequences may have been attributable to the viral RNA present among these samples being below the threshold of detection in our assay or to the absence of infection in the population at the time of sampling. In addition, the primers used in the PCR may target regions of the NiV N protein that exhibit substantial sequence divergence in a Nipah-like virus. Bat species in the genera Rouset-tus, Myotis, Miniopterus, and Hippo-sideros naturally reside in trees, buildings , and caves that can be in close proximity to human residential areas, which increases the potential of transmission of zoonotic pathogens from bats to humans. The increased risk for these zoonotic infections to spread from bats to humans in areas of co-habitation is best illustrated by the repeated spillover events involving NiV in Bangladesh (5). Given the present initial evidence of exposure among bats in mainland China shown here, there is an urgent need to continue and expand surveillance studies for heni-paviruses in China and elsewhere …