11 - Vaccines

Abstract

This chapter reviews the rabies vaccines for humans as well as for domestic animals. The recombinant vaccines for wildlife rabies control are also discussed. There are three types of rabies vaccines that are currently administered to humans throughout the world. These include: the nerve tissue-derived vaccines, the high-quality cell culture vaccines—produced under stringent quality control and quality assurance standards, and the lower-quality cell-culture vaccines that do not adhere to the federal drug administration regulations or national pharmacopeia standards in industrialized countries. The number of doses of vaccines required per patient for one post exposure treatment (PET) varies according to the type of rabies vaccine that is used. In the industrialized countries, only high-quality cell-culture rabies vaccines are licensed for use in humans, whereas most of the rabies vaccines administered in the developing countries are either nerve tissue rabies vaccines (NTVs) or lower-quality cell-culture rabies vaccines. The NTVs are produced from the brain tissue of animals infected with a fixed strain of the rabies virus.