Vaccinations and immunization
Since their development more than 4 decades ago, concentrated and purified cell-culture and embryonated egg-based rabies vaccines (here jointly referred to as CCVs) have proven to be safe and effective in preventing rabies.
These vaccines are intended for pre-exposure prophylaxis as well as post-exposure prophylaxis, and have been administered to millions of people worldwide.
Rabies differs from many other infections in that the development of clinical disease can be prevented through timely immunization even after exposure to the infecting agent.
Considerable progress has been made in the production of rabies vaccines whether live or inactivated for animal use during the past two decades with the increasing use of continuous cell lines as a substrate and adoption of the fermentor technology for antigen production. These vaccines are produced for administration to domestic animals or wild species by parenteral or oral routes according to vaccine characteristics.