Arctic/Arctic-like rabies virus group 2 spread into Bangladesh ≈32 years ago. Because rabies is endemic to and a major public health problem in this country, we characterized this virus group. Its glycoprotein has 3 potential N-glycosylation sites that affect viral pathogenesis. Diversity of rabies virus might have public health implications in Bangladesh.

Amid polio eradication efforts, detection of oral polio vaccine (OPV) virus in stool samples can provide information about rates of mucosal immunity and allow estimation of the poliovirus reservoir. We developed a multiplex one-step quantitative reverse transcription-PCR (qRT-PCR) assay for detection of OPV Sabin strains 1, 2, and 3 directly in stool samples with an external control to normalize samples for viral quantity and compared its performance with that of viral culture. We applied the assay to samples from infants in Dhaka, Bangladesh, after the administration of trivalent OPV (tOPV) at weeks 14 and 52 of life (on days 0 [pre-OPV], ؉4, ؉11, ؉18, and ؉25 relative to vaccination). When 1,350 stool samples were tested, the sensitivity and specificity of the quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay were 89 and 91% compared with culture. A quantitative relationship between culture ؉ / qPCR ؉ and culture ؊ /qPCR ؉ stool samples was observed. The kinetics of shedding revealed by qPCR and culture were similar. qPCR quantitative cutoffs based on the day ؉11 or ؉18 stool samples could be used to identify the culture-positive shedders, as well as the long-duration or high-frequency shedders. Interestingly, qPCR revealed that a small minority (7%) of infants contributed the vast majority (93 to 100%) of the total estimated viral excretion across all subtypes at each time point. This qPCR assay for OPV can simply and quantitatively detect all three Sabin strains directly in stool samples to approximate shedding both qualitatively and quantitatively. Both immunity to paralytic poliomyelitis and reduction of transmission of wild-type and vaccine-derived polioviruses are critical in polio eradication efforts (1, 2). Oral polio vaccine (OPV) is widely utilized in low-income settings for ease of delivery, low cost, and potential for mucosal immunity. OPV immunogenicity is imperfect (3), however, and shedding of vaccine strains further complicates the poliovirus reservoir. Measurement of poliovirus in stool samples can thus be useful in evaluating mucosal immunogenicity (4), in estimating the transmission intensities of vaccine-derived virus, and for surveillance after polio eradication (5).Poliovirus culture is still considered the gold standard procedure but requires up to two 7-day passages in two cell lines, followed by molecular or antigenic methods to differentiate and type the poliovirus isolates (6). This process is time-consuming and greatly diminishes the number of stool samples that can be surveyed. Furthermore, subcultured isolates are not always representative of the viruses present in the original stool sample and results are usually not quantitated by titer determination (7,8). PCR methods are therefore attractive in terms of cost, time, the ability to subtype, and quantitation (9-12). PCR for poliovirus has been found to be severalfold more sensitive than poliovirus isolation from cell culture (13) and has also been found to be more sensitive with cerebrospinal fluid, throat swabs, or stool samples (14-17). However, s...