Rabies virus is a very old parasite of animals and humans. Records dating back to 2300 years BC document that rabies was prevalent and recognized as a disease transmitted from dogs to humans in ancient Babylon, with the same epidemiologic features as today. Rabies virus strains from such divergent hosts as bats or foxes show very strong cross-reaction in serum neutralization in all parts of the world. This would suggest that rabies virus has not substantially changed in 4000 years of observation. Recently, Wiktor and Koprowski (1) demonstrated strain differences by the use of monoclonal antibodies. However, this method has not yet been applied to epidemiologic studies.
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Steck et al. (1980) studied this question.
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