Rabies Rabies is a world-recognized zoonotic disease which still remains neglected. Rabies is caused by rabies virus which is transmitted into a healthy individual through the saliva of infected animal. Usually, when an infected animal bites an individual or an animal, the saliva enters into the body through wound. It is a bullet-shaped virion, single stranded RNA with nucleocapsid core and lipoprotein envelope. It contains Negri bodies in the nucleocapsid which are also found in infected neurons.