Infection and Prevention of Rabies Viruses

Rabies is a fatal zoonotic disease and causes about 59,000 human deaths globally every year. Especially, its mortality is almost 100% in cases where the rabies virus has transmitted to the central nervous system. The special virus life cycle and pathogenic mechanism make it difficult for the host immune system to combat rabies viruses. Vaccination including pre-exposure and post-exposure prophylaxis is an effective strategy for rabies prevention. The pre-exposure vaccination is mainly applied for animals and the post-exposure vaccination is the most application for humans. Although rabies vaccines are widely used and seem to be safe and effective, there are some disadvantages, limitations, or challenges affecting vaccine promotion and distribution. Therefore, more effective, convenient, safer, and cheaper rabies vaccines have been developed or are being developed. The development of novel human rabies vaccine is mainly focusing on vaccines based on a purified Vero cell-cultured freeze-dried rabies vaccine (PVRV). PVRV has been demonstrated to be promising to make the rabies vaccine more effective and secure in animal studies or clinical trials. Moreover, mRNA-based vaccines have been shown to have the potential to enhance the safety and efficacy of rabies vaccines for both animal and human uses.