CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Pathogenesis and Therapy
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1639262
Application of metagenomics sequencing to diagnose paralytic rabies with stroke-like onset: a case report
Provisionally accepted
- The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Liuzhou, China
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Background: Rabies is an acute zoonotic infectious disease caused by infection with a virus of the genus Lyssavirus. We report a case of paralytic rabies with a stroke-like onset, which was diagnosed using metagenomics next-generation sequencing (mNGS).A 58-year-old man was admitted to the hospital with "numbness and weakness in the right upper extremity for 2 days, aggravated for 1 day". Twentyfive days before his admission, the patient was bitten on the back of right hand by an unvaccinated domestic dog, resulting in a penetrating injury, classified as grade III according to the rabies exposure classification method. Following admission, the patient exhibited rapidly progressive stroke symptoms, and on the second day, he suffered a sudden respiratory arrest accompanied by a weakened heartbeat and a decreased heart rate. He was treated with emergency tracheal intubation, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and dehydration to lower cranial pressure.Results: The patient's condition deteriorated rapidly after admission. A lumbar puncture was conducted on the morning of the second day of admission, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was sent to Weiyuan Genetic Laboratories (Guangzhou, China) for rabies virus identification. The patient died on the third day of admission. Pathogen capture macrogenomics was performed on CSF using an Illumina NextSeq second-generation sequencer, and nine rabies virus sequences, which shared more than 99% nucleotide homology with the genome sequence of the rabies virus Rabies lyssavirus (NCBI accession no. MN175989.1), were detected. The Q30 ratio of this test was 98.3%.: Compared to polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and direct fluorescent antibody (DFA)test, mNGS shortens the diagnostic window and improves sensitivity to low-virus or seronegative manifestations by simultaneously capturing and
Keywords: Stroke, Paralytic rabies, Cerebrospinal Fluid, whole genome sequencing, Zoonotic Infectious Disease
Received: 06 Jun 2025; Accepted: 12 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Zhong, Qin, Liu, Wu, Wang, Wang, Lu, Deng and Pan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Shan Deng, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Liuzhou, China
Liya Pan, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Liuzhou, China
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