Utility of forensic detection of rabies virus in decomposed exhumed dog carcasses

This report describes four suspected rabies cases in domestic dogs that were involved inhuman exposures. In all these cases, the animals were buried for substantial times beforerabies testing was performed. Animal rabies is endemic in South Africa and domestic dogsare the main vector for transmission to humans. Diagnosis of rabies in humans is complicated,and diagnosis in the animal vector can provide circumstantial evidence to support clinicaldiagnosis of rabies in humans. The gold standard diagnostic method, fluorescent antibodytest (FAT), only delivers reliable results when performed on fresh brain material and thereforedecomposed samples are rarely submitted for diagnostic testing. Severely decomposed brainmaterial was tested for the presence of rabies virus genomic material using a quantitativereal-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (q-real-time RT-PCR) assaywhen conventional molecular methods were unsuccessful. This may be a useful tool in theinvestigation of cases where the opportunity to sample the suspected animals post mortem wasforfeited and which would not be possible with conventional testing methodologies becauseof the decomposition of the material.