Introduction:
Rabies is one of the most fearful neglected human diseases belonging to the family Rhabdoviridae, genus Lyssavirus and it is a single-strand RNA virus.(1) The estimated worldwide death of this vaccine preventable zoonotic disease is 24,000 -93,000 victims per year, most of them are young in Africa and Asia.(2)
Most rabies infection is transmitted by exposure to saliva from an animal bite, mainly carnivores or bats with a variable incubation period. The presentation of rabies once the Rabies Viruses (RABV) established in the nervous system can be either encephalitic or paralytic rabies with a tendency toward rapid progression and death.(3)
Antemortem diagnosis of rabies requires several specimens and many laboratory modalities due to the limited sensitivity of a single test. Post-mortem detection of fluorescent antibody test (FAT) on a brain sample remains the gold standard test for rabies diagnosis, despite challenges. Real-time PCR can be used for ante-mortem and post mortem diagnosis of rabies with high sensitivity even in samples with low viral load.(4) There is no known effective treatment for rabies, and the disease is invariably fatal.(5)
We report the present patient, who was diagnosed as RABV infection and managed accordingly.