Two Boys Die of Rabies After FOUR Rabies Vaccinations
A major investigation is under way following the deaths of two boys who received rabies inoculations in Guandong Province.
Both deaths occurred less than two weeks apart in Guangdong’s Wengyuan County, and now the food and drug administration is looking into the batch of the vaccine concerned.
Zhong Yuwang died of rabies on June 28 after being bitten by a dog on his left hand and foot. He had received a month long course of four injections against the disease, but instead of speeding his recovery, the drug seemed to make him weaker, officials said.
A few days after Zhong’s death, another boy died of the same symptoms after he had received the same treatment at the same clinic.
Initial investigations indicate that improper storage of the vaccine during transportation somehow affected the vaccine, making it ineffective in fighting against the disease, said He Jingquan, a director with the provincial food and drug administration.
He said the vaccine was not kept refrigerated during its two-hour journey from a drug wholesaler in Shaoguan to the family planning service centre in Wengyuan, where the boys received their injections.
Source: China Daily, 16th July 2005.
Boy Dies of Acute Rabies Encephalitis Despite Being Given NINE Rabies Vaccinations
Identification of the Negri bodies in the brain of an 8-year-old boy who died 8 days after a paralytic illness and 20 days after a dog bite, and who had received 9 injections of Semple’s anti-rabies vaccine, provided evidence that he died of acute rabies encephalitis and not of post-vaccinal allergic encephalomyelitis. The Negri bodies in the human subject and those seen in the inoculated mouse differed in their morphological structure: the former consisted of a matrix of very fine granular material bearing larger granules or strands of higher electron-density resembling nucleic acids and representing products of host cell-virus interaction; and the latter showed better defined areas of granular matrix containing tubular, bullet-shaped and elongated forms of viral structures, and nucleocapsids or capsule-deficient cores, representing the virions, emerging from them. Fine structural examination of the patient’s brain and of the inoculated mouse has provided evidence of the pleomorphism of the Negri bodies and the various stages of formation of viral material and virions in them, the animal alone showing the mature virions of rabies, and proving the infectivity of the Negri bodies of the human brain.
Source: J Neurol Sci. 1986 Sep;75(2):181-93. PMID: 3760910; UI: 87010723.
