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With the global impetus for the elimination of canine-mediated human rabies, the need for robust rabies surveillance systems has become ever more important. Many countries are working to improve their rabies surveillance programs and, as a result, the reported use of lateral flow devices (LFDs) is increasing. Despite their known diagnostic limitations, previous studies have hypothesised that the benefits associated with LFDs could make them potentially quite useful towards improving the overall robustness of surveillance programs. To test this, a best practice standard operating procedure was developed which was used to guide the implementation of the ADTEC LFD as a diagnostic screening tool in Zanzibar. Over the course of the first 22 months of this investigation, 83 samples were subjected to in-field diagnostic screening, coupled with subsequent laboratory confirmation, and only one false-negative result was detected. Furthermore, the findings of our investigation indicated that the routine use of LFDs as a diagnostic screening tool resulted in a four-fold increase in the number of samples subjected to rabies diagnosis per month and a three-fold increase in the number of wards where samples were collected per year. Our findings suggest that LFDs could play a noteworthy role in improving the robustness of surveillance systems by increasing the number of samples tested and promoting diagnostic screening in areas distant from laboratories. Their implementation would, however, need to be carefully controlled through standardised protocols that align with the international best practices to ensure their judicious use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Members of the Paramyxoviridae family are enveloped negative-sense RNA viruses, further classified into either the Pneumovirinae or Paramyxovirinae subfamily (1). The Paramyxovirinae subfamily has increasingly been associated with bat species [...]

Rabies, despite its high case-fatality rate and preventability (through efficacious preexposure and postexposure prophylaxis), has in recent years progressively become established as a neglected disease, and most human cases are [...]

We determined complete genome sequences of lineage 2 West Nile virus (WNV) strains isolated from patients in South Africa who had mild or severe WNV infections. These strains had previously [...]

The incidence of dog rabies in Limpopo Province, South Africa, increased from 5 cases in 2004 to 100 in 2006. Human rabies had last been confirmed in 1981, but investigations [...]

A genotype 2 lyssavirus, Lagos bat virus (LBV), was isolated from a terrestrial wildlife species (water mongoose) in August 2004 in the Durban area of the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South [...]

We recently identified 2 Mokola viruses from domestic mammals (a dog and a cat) in South Africa, These cases occurred 8 years after the last reported case of infection with [...]

Duvenhage virus was isolated from a patient who died of a rabieslike disease after being scratched by a bat early in 2006. This occurred [approximately equal to] 80 km from [...]

Three more isolates of Lagos bat virus were recently recovered from fruit bats in South Africa after an apparent absence of this virus for 13 years. The sporadic occurrence of [...]

Abstract Background A panel of 37 rabies virus isolates were collected and studied, originating mainly from the northern and central regions of Namibia, between 1980 and 2003. Results These virus isolates demonstrated a high degree of genetic similarity with respect to a 400 bp region of the nucleoprotein gene, with the virus isolates originating from kudu antelope (n = 10) sharing 97.2–100% similarity with jackal isolates, and 97–100% similarity with those isolated from domestic dogs. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that these viruses were all of the canid rabies biotype of southern Africa. The viruses from kudu were closely associated with jackal isolates (n = 6), bat-eared fox isolates (n = 2) and domestic dog isolates (n = 2) at the genetic level and identical at the amino acid level, irrespective of the year of isolation. Conclusion These data suggest that jackal and kudu may form part of the same epidemiological cycle of rabies in Namibian wildlife, and might demonstrate the close-relationship between rabies virus strains that circulate within Namibia and those that circulate between Namibia and its neighbouring countries such as Botswana and South Africa.