It is essential to rapidly and precisely diagnose rabies. In this study, we evaluated four diagnostic methods, indirect fluorescent antibody test (FAT), virus isolation (VI), reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), and rapid immunodiagnostic assay (RIDA), to detect rabies in animal brain homogenates. Out of the 110 animal brain samples tested, 20 (18.2%) were positive for rabies according to the FAT. Compared to the FAT, the sensitivities of VI, RT-PCR, and RIDA were 100, 100, and 95%, respectively. The specificities of VI, RT-PCR and RIDA were found to be 100, 100, and 98.9%, respectively. Rabies viruses circulating in Korea were isolated and propagated in murine neuroblastoma (NG108-15) cells with titers ranging from 101.5 to 104.5 TCID50/mL. Although the RIDA findings did not completely coincide with results obtained from FAT, VI, and RT-PCR, RIDA appears to be a fast and reliable assay that can be used to analyze brain samples. In summary, the results from our study showed that VI, RT-PCR, and RIDA can be used as supplementary diagnostic tools for detecting rabies viruses in both laboratory and field settings.
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