Recent Advances in Prevention and Control of Rabies

Abstract

This special issue includes 6 papers covering important aspects of rabies prevention, epidemiology and control. The topics discussed are: the current trends in human and animal rabies and newly initiated preventive and control efforts to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies in Southeast Asia; the rabies situation and postexposure treatment in eastern Europe and Middle East; the situation of rabies in humans and animals in Madagascar between 2005 and 2010; use of intradermal rabies vaccine to boost immunity in people with low rabies antibody levels; immunogenicity of simulated purified chick embryo cell rabies vaccine (PCECV) postexposure booster doses 1, 3 and 5 years after 2-dose and 3-dose primary rabies vaccination in school children; and, immunogenicity of a prototype rabies vaccine construct (SAD dIND1) with a site-directed deletion in the phosphoprotein in foxes and skunks. Overall, this special issue on rabies contains timely, informative and thought-provoking papers that may be of interest not only to basic researchers but also to medical and veterinary professionals engaged in prevention of human rabies and control of canine rabies.