Laboratory diagnosis of a human rabies case

G. Barboi, D. Dermengiu, M. Costescu, V. Vuta, N. Alexandru, M. Turcitu, S. Nicolae, F. Dumitrescu

Abstract: Laboratory diagnosis of a human rabies case. In this paper we describe an 65 years old human case, T.S., diagnosed postmortem with rabies. National Reference Laboratory for Rabies from the Institute for Diagnostic and Animal Health has received brain samples from National Institute of Legal Medicine "Mina Minovici" for specific rabies tests to be performed. The results from direct imunofluorescence examination was found to be positive during the same day, folowed in the next days by hystological tests as well as RT-PCR (Revers-Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction) through virus nucleoprotein gene amplification. Phylogenetic analysis placed the isolate into serotype 1 cathegory, with highly phylogenetic similarity with the animals isolates from central areas of Romania.
Keywords: rabies, direct imunofluorescence, PCR, phylogenetic analysis