Abstract

Faris Esayas, Adem Hiko *, Abraham Ali , Adem Kedir and Linda Kokorevica

Experimental study was conducted on rabies at Ethiopia Health and Nutrition Research Institute to assess the infectiousness of brain and salivary gland tissue suspensions from 13 rabies suspected cases of dog. Fluorescent antibody test (FAT) and mice inoculation test (MIT) were applied. Suspensions from each tissue of individual dog head was prepared and inoculated into intracranial in paired 10 mice pre head of dog. Rabies symptoms from these mice were considered over 30 days of observation and used as evaluation of infectiousness of the suspension. Among both suspensions prepared from 13 rabies suspected cases, 61.5% of each brain and salivary gland tissue were determined rabies positive using FAT. A 53.8% of the brains and 69.2% of salivary glands were found positive by MIT, having a significant difference in sensitivity (P<0.05). Out of the 260 mice inoculated, 55% showed clinical signs of rabies. Of which, 46% (60/130) were those mice inoculated with brain suspension and 63% (83/130) with salivary glands by proportion, showing significant difference (P < 0.05). From 260 inoculated mice, 74% found dead, of which 67% (88/130) and 80% (105/130) was inoculated with brain and salivary gland suspensions, respectively. The salivary glands suspensions were determined to be highly infectiousness than that of the brain (P<0.05). It was concluded that salivary glands suspensions is highly infectiousness than that of brain which could be from the higher virus titer in the salivary gland during symptoms and virus shading by infected cases.