Original Research Paper Dna Vaccines - Promising Approach in Prevention of Rabies

Rabies is a reemerging and fatal infectious disease in Asia mainly caused by exposure to rabid dogs. The disease is transmitted through the bite of an infected animal, usually from a dog, and can be prevented by the timely administration of rabies immune globulins and post-bite vaccination. Prevention of dog rabies would be the most effective way to stop rabies transmission to humans. However, vaccinating stray dogs in urban and rural areas using conventional vaccines is always difcult and is not cost-effective for use in most areas. This calls for improvement of rabies vaccination strategies. The failure to eliminate dog rabies in most developing countries stresses the necessity of improving rabies control programs by applying new vaccines or new vaccination strategies. There is a need for development of alternative vaccine strategies to overcome the shortcomings of the current conventional vaccines. In spite of great advances in virology there is yet no cure for rabies. Rabies glycoprotein is the major antigen responsible for inducing protective immunity. So it is mostly used in genetic vaccines for producing antigenic protein. DNA vaccination using glycoprotein has immense potential in this regard.