Rabies Prevention is mandatory
Rabies is an acute infectious viral disease of humans and animals with wound mechanism of virus transmission. It is among the top five infectious diseases common to humans and animals, causing the greatest social and economic damage. This disease is registered in more than 150 countries and is a constant object of attention of international medical and veterinary organizations (WHO, FAO, OIE).
In Russia, the number of rabies cases in animals is steadily increasing; each year 8 to 20 people die from rabies, medical help for bites and other wounds received from animals is provided to more than 450 thousand.
In view of the aforesaid facts controlling rabies in Russia and the CIS is one of the most significant problems that require immediate action.To this effect, the Government annually allocates funds and orders domestic companies to manufacture rabies vaccines. Moreover, from year to year the funds allocated, and, consequently, the production of rabies biologics are growing.
Given the epizootic situation, when both wild and domestic animals play an important role in the spread of rabies, anti-rabies product line covers all risk groups. For wild carnivorous animals the company produces vaccines for oral use containing live attenuated rabies virus, and vaccination of productive and domestic animals is mainly done with inactivated vaccine injected intramuscularly and subcutaneously.
Shchelkovo Biocombinat is currently the leading manufacturer of inactivated rabies vaccines in Russia. Our sorbed and lyophilized vaccines used for the prevention of rabies in cattle, sheep, goats, horses, pigs, dogs and cats are developed with the account of climatic zones in Russia, characterized by a wide temperature range. For instance, in Siberia, the Far East and northern regions it makes sense to use lyophilized vaccines, since at low temperatures their immunogenic properties do not change (opposed to sorbed vaccines that must not freeze).
In 2013 to confirm the quality of products and compare them with foreign analogues used in Russia, Shchelkovo Biocombinat conducted a series of tests to compare the potency of the following drugs, (tests were run according to the NIH procedure): the rabies inactivated dry culture vaccine received from Schyolkovo 51 strain; the rabies inactivated liquid culture (Rabik) vaccine received from Schyolkovo 51 strain and produced by Shchelkovo Biocombinat ; and the Rabizin vaccine for the prevention of rabies in dogs and cats produced by Merial S.A.S, France.
For this purpose, white mice weighing 12-14 grams were immunized with the tested vaccines and the vaccine reference. Vaccination was carried out twice, at a 7-day interval, with a subsequent infection of CVS rabies virus test strain. Calculation of the vaccine potency was based on a survival rate of immunized animals compared to a reference vaccine activity of 1.8 IU.
The results confirmed the competitiveness and the quality of rabies vaccine produced by Shchelkovo Biocombinat . That allows to recommend their widespread use in the Russian Federation.