EN
The paper describes the first case of the isolation of the European bat lyssavirus type 1b in the Serotine bat (Eptesicus serotinus) in Poland. The study relates to 52 samples, among them four were rabies isolates. Rabies was diagnosed by the fluorescent antibody test (FAT) as well as heminested RT-PCR. Further identification of European bat lyssaviruses was based on phylogenetic analysis of a 400 bp fragment of the nucleoprotein gene. Phylogenetic analysis of four viral isolates obtained from Polish bats and 22 nucleoprotein gene sequences previously described and available on the GenBank database showed that the Polish isolates were divided into two groups - EBLV-1a and EBLV-1b. Three out of four isolates were identified as EBLV-1a whereas one was recognised as EBLV-1b.