The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Rabies vaccine: thumbs up for State’s attempt

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Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Rabies vaccine: thumbs up for State’s attempt

Staff Reporter

Vaccination through intra dermal route

Pilot project launched in February
Results to study show IDRV regimen is cheaper, safer

Thiruvananthapuram: The efficacy of anti-rabies vaccination through the Intra Dermal (ID) route, introduced in the State in February this year in selected centres, has been found to be very high, conferring an immune status which is 14 times higher than the required level to the bite-victim.

This was revealed in the immunosurveillance study done at NIMHANS, Bangalore, using serum samples of 115 persons who had been administered anti rabies vaccine via the ID route in the State in the past four months.

The results of the study thus justifies the State’s choice of Intra Dermal Rabies Vaccination (IDRV) regimen as a safe and cheaper alternative to the Intra Muscular regimen, said Thomas Mathew, the State Nodal Officer for IDRV and Professor of Community Medicine, Alappuzha. He was presenting a review of the IDRV project in the State at the 11th national conference of the Association for Prevention and Control of Rabies in India (APCRI) here on Saturday.

In Kerala, which reports an average of 60 rabies deaths every year, the annual expenditure on rabies vaccine purchase is over Rs.25 crore. IDRV regimen is expected to bring down this cost drastically as the ID route requires much lower doses of the vaccine.

The IDRV was introduced in the State on a pilot basis in five General Hospitals and three taluk headquarter hospitals. So far, 8,227 doses of rabies vaccine have been administered by the ID route in the State.

Across the State

IDRV regimen will be made available in 235 health centres across the State by the end of the year. This means that by the end December 2009, at least one hospital in every block will be equipped and the staff trained, to administer rabies vaccine via the ID route, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy said.

The government is committed to making all doses of IDRV free of cost to all sections of society. The IDRV, along with strategies for controlling animal rabies, is expected to help the State attain rabies-free status by 2015, she added.

The government is also exploring the possibilities of making available anti-rabies serum (immunoglobulin), which is required in the case of category III animal bites (bites on the face, neck) free of cost to at least BPL category patients, Director of National Rural Health Mission Dinesh Arora said.

In Kerala, studies done in the past four months have shown that more than 72 per cent of the dog-bite victims require the anti-rabies serum and not the vaccine. The serum is quite expensive at nearly Rs. 5,000 for a single dose. Public sector hospitals often face serum shortage and even the BPL category patient often ends up having to purchase the serum from the open market.

Over 250 delegates from India and abroad are taking part in the two-day conference.

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