Comparative studies on sensitivity of the cornea examination by direct fluorescent antibody technique and intracerebral mice inoculation with saliva to the intravitam diagnosis of experimental rabies in cattle

Abstract

The examination of 57 samples pairs (cornea and saliva ) collected from 18 bovines with experimental rabies by both techniques direct fluorescent antibodies applied to cornea impressions and intracerebral mice inoculation with saliva revealed that the former provided a greater frequency of positive reactions (84,2% ) than the latte r (22,8%). In addition, it was observed that once the cornea test had provided a positive result such condition was maintained until death of the animal, and in no occasion could the virus be detected in saliva without a positive result with the cornea test on the same animal. The false negative values obtained with the cornea test (16,7% ) suggested that a negative result does not exclude the possibility of the disease.