Indian J Med Res
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Traditionally, rabies diagnosis is made by demonstration of rabies viral antigen by direct immunofluorescence (DIF) and mouse inoculation test (MIT). The present study was carried out to evaluate the role of reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in comparison with these conventional techniques for the diagnosis of rabies. ⋯ The present results showed 100 per cent sensitivity and specificity of RT-PCR as compared to 83.3 per cent of DIF and 66.7 per cent of Sellers stain for diagnosis of rabies. RT-PCR also detected rabies viral infection earlier as compared to conventional tests and can also be used on ante-mortem samples. Thus, the present study shows the usefulness of RT-PCR as an alternative to MIT for the confirmation of rabies diagnosis.