Eradicate Rabies with Mass Parental Vaccination, Human Post-Exposure Prophylaxis, and Gene Therapy: A Systematic Review

Rabies is one of the neglected tropical diseases, almost 100% fatal, but preventable. Rabies virus causes the disease and causes about 59000 human deaths annually. The author searched the Pubmed Database at NCBI for articles on rabies disease published between 2007 and 2018. All articles are open access, free for redistribution and in English. To examine rabies virus, Seller’s test was used. In this article, references written by the author were included and relevant publications were also included. The author reviewed a rabies dog case kept at Nelwan Institution for Human Resource Development. The dog showed clinical signs such as aggressive behavior, in-appetence, and soaking in water. Currently, there are no drugs to treat rabies. Vaccination is the best way to prevent the disease. To eradicate rabies, mass vaccination in dogs, post-exposure prophylaxis, and gene therapy can be used. To prevent rabies disease, minimum 70% of the dog population should receive vaccination. Humans with category II exposure should receive rabies vaccine and rabies immunoglobulin. For treatment, in vivo experiment showed that gene therapy can eliminate rabies from the infected neurons by using rAAV-N796. To fight rabies virus, induced pluripotent cells in combination with CRISPR/Cas9 system can also be beneficial. Furthermore, it needs US$ 8.6 billion to fight rabies annually.