Materials and methods
The material for our research were rectal swabs from 108 wildlife omnivorous and herbivorous animals collected from 2014 to 2018 in eastern Poland (51.216667, 22.9). Rectal swabs were taken from the following species of animals: common squirrels Sciurus vulgaris(n = 30), rats Rattus (n = 16), European hedgehogsErinaceus europaeus (n = 8), European roe deer Capreolus capreolus (n = 6), red deer Cervus elaphus elaphus (n = 34), European hares Lepus europaeus (n = 7), voles Apodemus agrarius (n = 2), European hamsters Cricetus cricetus (n = 3), and a European beaver Castor fiber (n = 2).
Swabs were collected from animals delivered to the State Veterinary Laboratory in Lublin due to suspected rabies infection, in accordance with the regulations on the control of infectious diseases in animals (Polish Veterinary Inspection, 2015). Poland is still not free from rabies; therefore, suspicious dead animals are tested for the presence of this virus in state laboratories. The sampling procedure was carried out in accordance with the legal recommendations described earlier (Nowakiewicz et al., 2016) and did not require permission of the ethics committee. Only samples with a negative virological result were tested.