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.