Vaccines and Other Biologicals

Abstract

Louise Pasteur prepared the first crude nerve tissue vaccine for rabies. Dr. David Semple developed the completely inactivated and safer Semple vaccine at Central Research Institute in Kasauli (India). With the advent of modern cell culture vaccines, the WHO does not advocate the use of the earlier nerve tissue vaccines anymore. Modern vaccines produced on various cellular substrates and continuous cell lines are highly effective in both pre-exposure and postexposure prophylaxis against rabies. Different novel vaccines such as attenuated rabies mutants, viral recombinant vaccines, DNA vaccines, and subunit vaccines have been developed recently that hold great promise for the future. The use of rabies immunoglobulin (RIG) for passive immunisation also dates back to the nineteenth century. Currently two types of products, namely, equine RIG and human RIG, are available. Development of alternative products and MAb is underway. There has also been considerable progress in the production of rabies vaccines for animal use. Several types of vaccines are available for administration to domestic animals or wild species by parenteral or oral routes. A third generation of live veterinary rabies vaccine has been developed more recently using recombinant technology.