The use of Rabies Immunoglobulins(RIG) is still in the infancy stage in India. Even though WHO recommends the use of RIG in every animal bite case where there is oozing of blood only a few centres in India use RIG while the others are happy to use just the vaccine. The Human RIG is simply out of reach for the common man as the price is very high and doctors have a phobia for the Equine RIG. The reason being that till a few years back the equine RIG were known to cause anaphylactic reactions in some cases.
Today Equine RIG is available with advance purification method to make it safe and have less chances of any reaction. One reason for the RIG not being used frequently is also the fact that in case of rabies vaccine one has to take it in the arm whereas in the case of RIG it has to be infiltrated "into and around the wound". So you see here is the catch, application of vaccine is easy and hence more rampantly used whereas in case of RIG one has to take care of infiltrating the wound and watch for any side effects.
Vaccines act only after ten days, so what happens if the patient develops rabies before ten days? Who is at fault? How many such cases will be recorded? Shouldn't the authorities also make a move towards increasing the usage of RIG?
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