Safety and Immunogenicity of ETHIORAB Rabies Vaccine

Abstract

Worldwide rabies in dogs is the source of 99% of human infections. This makes dogs potential reservoir andtransmitters to human being. Pre and post-exposure prophylaxis are means of protection against the rabies virus. Themain objective of this experiment was to determine the safety and immunogenicity of Vero cell culture based rabiesvaccine “ ETHIORAB ” manufactured by Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute, Vaccine and DiagnosticProduction Directorate. The obtained vaccine was tested on mice and satisfactory safety results were observed.Random Clinical Trial (RCT) design was used for this experiment. Twelve experimental dogs from local breed wereduly conditioned during a quarantine period and assigned to two groups randomly. Group I (cases) were vaccinatedsubcutaneously with 1 ml of ETHIORAB Dogs in group II served as non-vaccinated controls. To evaluate the titerof the rabies virus neutralizing antibodies (VNA), sera were analyzed by Fluorescent Antibody Virus Neutralization(FAVN) test. Serum neutralizing antibody geomtric mean titers (GMT) to rabies virus was determined at days 7, 15,21, 30, 60 and 90. Geomtric mean titers were equal to 1.55, 1.73, 2.02, 3.45, 3.57 and 3.17 IU/ml respectively. Alldogs showed VNA titers higher than the 0.5 IU/ml mandated WHO recommended threshold. This study indicated ETHIORAB rabies vaccine manufactured in Ethiopia is safe and immunogenic.