Rabies Vaccines: Duration-of-Immunity Study in Dogs

Abstract

SUMMARY Eight types of rabies vaccines were tested to determine their relative immunogenic quality. In addition to measuring their relative potency values in laboratory animals, we tested these vaccines for their ability to stimulate lasting immunity in 320 purebred Beagles. The 4 modified live-virus vaccines of tissue culture-origin protected dogs as well as did the low-egg passage ( lep ) chicken embryo-origin ( ceo ) Flury strain (for 39 months). The inactivated tissue-culture vaccine of hamster kidney origin ( hktc ) with an adjuvant did not protect dogs as well as did the other vaccines (for either 12 or 39 months). The inactivated suckling mouse brain ( smb ) vaccine used in Latin America protected all of the dogs for 12 months and 80% of them for 3 years. The inactivated purified rabies virus ( prv ) vaccine, prepared at the Center for Disease Control and concentrated to contain 10 times the antigenic mass of the smb vaccine, was the only vaccine that protected all dogs for 3 years.