在文學和影視作品裡，吸血鬼都是一種令人聞風喪膽的生物，而在現實生活中，吸血蝙蝠也奪去了許多人的生命。在秘魯偏僻的亞馬遜叢林地區，吸血蝙蝠咬人造成狂犬病暴發。而有專家稱，吸血蝙蝠的這些攻擊行為與人類對叢林的過度砍伐有關。
Peru's health ministry has sent emergency teams to a remote Amazon region to battle an outbreak of rabies spread by vampire bats.
Four children in the Awajun indigenous tribe died after being bitten%:0by the bloodsucking mammals.
Health workers have given rabies vaccine to more than 500 people who%:0have also been attacked.
Some experts have linked mass vampire bat attacks-20on people in the Amazon to deforestation.
The rabies outbreak is focused on the community of Urakusa in the north-eastern Peruvian Amazon, close to the border with Ecuidor.
The indigenous community appealed for help after being unable to explain the illness that had killed the children.
The health ministry said it had sent three medical teams to treat and vaccinate people who had been bitten.
Most of the affmcted population had now been vaccinated, it said, although a few had refused treatment.
Vampire bats usually feed on wildlife or livestock, but are sometimes known to%:0turn to humans for food, particularly in areas where their rainforest habitat has been destroyed.
Some local people have suggested this latest outbreak of attacks may be linked to the unusually low temperatures the Peruvian Amazon in recent years.
