State health officials limit shots to maintain supply of human rabies vaccine

By: Jamie Rogers | SCNOW
Published: September 28, 2008

Limited quantities of the human rabies vaccine have caused state health officials to limit the amount of vaccinations they give to residents.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials told the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control last month limited amounts of the drug are available, DHEC spokeswoman Clair Boatwright said.

“I would not call it a shortage,” Boatwright said. “It’s a temporary drop in production.”

In the past, the drug was given as a rabies preventative to at-risk people such as veterinarians and others who work around animals, Boatwright said. But the medicine is now only administered to people who have been or might have been exposed to the virus.

The interruption in the supply flow of the rabies vaccination began in June 2007 when Sanofi Pasteur, a manufacturer of a rabies vaccine, began renovating its production facility in France, according to the CDC Web site.

After renovations were under way, Novartis, the other company that supplies rabies vaccinations to the United States, was unable to keep up with demands.

Sanofi Pasteur also has found that demand for its drug, IMOVAX, is outpacing the company’s historical levels of supply, according to the CDC.

This year, Novartis has been supplying its rabies vaccine, RabAvert, only for use by patients who have been exposed to the disease.

DHEC will continue limiting the vaccine until the supply can get back to its previous distribution level, Boatwright said.

In the meantime, state residents can save themselves some trouble by staying out of the way of wild and stray domestic animals, she said.

“Do not adopt wild animals. Let nature be,” Boatwright said. “And if you plan to adopt a stray, take it the the vet immediately ... We had (a case) down in the Beaufort area where 30 people had to be treated ... We had another case with a fox being adopted and that number (of people treated) was in the double digits.”

Officials said the vaccine can be expensive, and receiving it isn’t an experience most people would want to go through, she said.

Still, some rabies exposures come as no fault to a resident, Boatwright said.

“There are a lot of times where an animal just comes flying out of the woods and bites somebody on the ankle,” she said.

If someone is bitten by an animal, he or she should try to capture it — but only if it can be done so safely, Boatwright said. Officials like to have the animal on hand so it can be observed for signs of rabies.

In 2007, Chesterfield County had four confirmed rabies cases in animals — the highest number in the Pee Dee. Florence and Dillon counties followed with three confirmed animal rabies cases, according to DHEC data.

For more information about rabies, visit scdhec.gov/rabies on the Internet.