**1. Introduction**

Rabies is known as a fatal viral infection that is most commonly spread to humans and pets through the bites, scratches, or contamination of mucous membranes with the infected saliva of an infected animal. In an infected organism, an acute progressive encephalomyelitis/encephalitis develops ultimately resulting in death.

The infection is caused by a neurotropic zoonotic virus belonging to the *Lyssavirus* genus (named after *Lyssa*, an ancient Greek goddess, the personification of rabies) of the *Rhabdoviridae* family (from the Latin *rhabdos*, meaning "rod", because the members of this family have rod-shaped virions). Currently, the *Lyssavirus* genus contains 18 virus species (https://talk.ictvonline.org/), and between them, the rabies virus is the most important one concerning its impact on public health.
