The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Meet to focus on rabies vaccination

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Saturday, Jul 04, 2009
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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Meet to focus on rabies vaccination

Staff Reporter

Thiruvananthapuram: The 11th national conference of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India will be held here on July 4 and 5.

The theme of the conference is ‘Intra Dermal Rabies Vaccination (IDRV): the Challenges Ahead.’ Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy will inaugurate the conference.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, organising secretary of the conference and Nodal Officer for IDRV, Kerala, Thomas Mathew said the IDVR regimen for rabies, which was introduced in the State last year, had been found to be very successful.

Immunogenicity (immune status) studies done using blood samples from people in Kerala, who had been administered the rabies vaccines through the intra dermal regimen, had been found to be quite high, he said.

The IDRV was being implemented in five Medical Colleges and five General Hospitals in the State. The entire network of district and general hospitals here would soon be using the IDRV regimen for rabies treatment, Dr. Mathew added.

Now that IDRV had been introduced in the State, there was a substantial reduction in costs, enabling the government to offer rabies vaccination free of cost to all.

The two-day conference would discuss the issues involved in rabies control in India, with special focus on the IDRV regimen.

Doctors and experts in the field of rabies control from all over the country would be attending the conference.

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