Rabies in South Indian Cows: An evidence of Sri Lankan Rabies virus Variant Infection Based on the Analysis of Partial Nucleoprotein Gene

Rabies is a highly fatal non-suppurative encephalomyelitis, caused by the Rabies virus . Dogs are the major reservoir of rabies in India and are the source of infection to other domestic animals. In this report, laboratory investigation and molecular characterization of isolates from two cows with paralytic rabies is described. Necropsy brain samples from the two cows were tested for the presence of rabies antigen using a fluorescent antibody test and the results were confirmed using RT-PCR. Rabies virus was successfully isolated from both the brain samples in a murine neuroblastoma cell line. The phylogenetic analysis of partial nucleoprotein gene sequences of these isolates showed them to be of a variant of Rabies virus which is closely related to the Sri Lankan Rabies virus lineage as previously reported. In addition, partial nucleoprotein genes of 19 more Rabies virus isolates from southern India were sequenced and of these 11 isolates were found to be closely related to the Sri Lankan lineage. The deduced amino acid sequences of the partial nucleoprotein of the Indian isolates were 96–99% identical to the Sri Lankan isolates. This investigation re-confirms the previous speculations that the Sri Lankan variant of the virus may still be actively transmitted by animals in India.