Laboratory Diagnosis in Humans - Rabies Virus Infection

Laboratory Diagnosis in Humans

◗ Specimens

Saliva, serum, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), blood, urine, and skin and brain biopsy are the frequently used specimens for diagnosis of rabies.

◗ Microscopy

Demonstration of Negri bodies by microscopy is the character-istic histopathological feature of rabies (Fig. 64-3, Color Photo 59). Impression smears of the human brain tissue collected at postmortem are stained by Seller’s technique for demonstra-tion of Negri bodies. The stain contains methylene blue alcohol as fixative and basic fuchsin as staining reagent.