Laboratory techniques for rabies diagnosis in animals at QSMI.

The Queen Saovabha Memorial Institute (QSMI), Thai Red Cross Society was founded in 1922 to carry out the production of the nervous tissue vaccines, post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) treatment, research, and laboratory diagnosis. The diagnostic laboratory had replaced the Seller's staining with direct fluorescent test (DFA) as standard technique in 1987 and the mouse inoculation technique (MIT) had been employed as the confirmatory test to ensure the result of the diagnosis. Other techniques conducted at our facility such as tissue culture infection and polymerase chain reaction techniques are less practical although the sensitivity is competitive with DFA but mainly for research references.