Post-exposure immunoprophylaxis of goats against rabies

Uniform groups of young goats, free from rabies antibody, were inoculated with 600,000 mouse LD50 of a dog origin street virus via the massetter muscle. Two vaccine schedules, one consisting of 24 intramuscular doses of ERA vaccine and the other 4 doses of the same vaccine were given to 2 groups of virus inoculated goats and to 2 groups of uninoculated goats respectively. There were no significant differences in incubation periods of the clinically ill goats when the two pos-exposure vaccinated groups were compared. Both treated groups however, had longer incubation periods that the untreated control groups. Essentially the same experiment was done again, this time with 8.0 ml of high titer anti-rabies goat serum administered simultaneously. The incubation periods were prolonged slightly more than in the first experiment. The antiserum alone had the same effect. While no protection from mortality was observed in any group from these post-exposure treatments, it must be recognized that the virus challenge was severe both in dosage and in route of inoculation, and that the use of antibody also had quantitative aspects which were not taken into account. This work should be repeated giving appropriate consideration to the quantitative aspects of both virus and antibody dosage as well as to a less strenuous route of inoculation.