Rabies virus-neutralising antibodies in healthy, unvaccinated individuals: What do they mean for rabies epidemiology?

ABSTRACT: Rabies has been a widely feared disease for thousands of years, with records of rabid dogs as early as ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian texts. The reputation of rabies as being inevitably fatal, together with its ability to affect all mammalian species, contributes to the fear surrounding this disease. However, the widely held view that exposure to the rabies virus is always fatal has been repeatedly challenged. Although survival following clinical infection in humans has only been recorded on a handful of occasions, a number of studies have reported detection of rabies-specific antibodies in the sera of humans, domestic animals, and wildlife that are apparently healthy and unvaccinated. These 'seropositive' individuals provide possible evidence of exposure to the rabies virus that has no

SUBMITTER: Gold S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7017994 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature