[Chronic rabies infection in mice intracerebrally infected with street virus]

Experimental white mice inoculated intracerebrally with street virus developed the clinical form of chronic rabies infection. The duration of clinical manifestations in the animals with the chronic course of the disease was 55 days. In all the cases the disease was fatal. Virological, immunofluorescent and electron microscopic examinations of the brains of these mice have shown that in the chronic form of rabies, in contrast to the acute form, (a) the infectious virus titre is by 4-5 orders lower; (b) the number of fluorescent antigen corpuscules is significantly higher; (c) there is a considerable accumulation of virus "matrices" (aggregates of viral nucleocapsids) in which single virus particles and numerous tubular forms can be detected. No virions of rabies forming on intracellular membranes were found.