Real-time Sybr Green Pcr for Dog Rabies Diagnosis

The use of a 10-day observation to determine whether a dog is rabid is standard practice. This study was conducted in order to look for evidence of rabies vius in saliva and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of suspected live rabid dogs at the time of quarantine by using a SYBR Green real-time RT-PCR based assay for the detection of rabies virus RNA. Saliva and CSF of dogs were collected once on the day of admission for the 10-day quarantine. All test dogs were or became ill and died of rabies within the observation period. Thirteen of 15 dogs (87%) had saliva samples that were positive for rabies RNA. Two dogs with furious rabies had negative saliva samples. Positive CSF samples were found in 4 of 15 dogs (27%) whose saliva samples were positive. The time from sample collection to result was less than 5 hours. Because virus may be absent or present at very low level in both clinical fluids, samples taken for ante-mortem diagnosis cannot definitively rule out rabies. mals and prefer having them caged and observed for clinical signs. Laboratory examination in combination with a 10-day observation can be used to derive more precise antemortem diagnosis of dog rabies. There is no ideal ante-mortem diagnostic test for rabies but saliva and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) evaluation may provide a valuable tool for this approach. However, no reports have been published demonstrating the value of intravitam laboratory diagnosis of rabies in dogs. This study was aimed to determine whether rabies virus was present in saliva or CSF of biting dogs at the time of quarantine in comparison to brain after death, and to determine the adequacy of using real-time PCR with SYBR Green I for detecting rabies virus in both clinical fluids. MATERIALS AND METHODS