Quote:
Originally Posted by gemy  I agree although her original link describes a title of New guidelines for pets that are overdue for Rabies booster.
The remaining 19 dogs with out-of-date vaccinations had a median pre-booster titer of 2.0 IU/mL –well over the ≥ 0.5 IU/mL that indicates protection against the virus.
This quote from the article is surprising to me, as I did not know that in North America that there is scientific agreement on titering values for Rabies protection. I do know in Europe - specifically England they require a Rabies titer before allowing any dog into their country. A rabies certificate is not enough you must titer your dog. I wonder what England knows that we do not? |
I'm on it. Here is one research article that says that antibody titers are NOT sufficient to indicate rabies immunity:
http://www.pnas.org/content/83/20/7947.full.pdf
"This study also shows that a minimum virus-neutralizing antibody titer is not widely applicable as an indication of adequate animal vaccination, especially in wildlife species, unlike the arbitrarily defined level of 0.5 unit/ml in humans, which is considered indicative of successful rabies immunization (22). As an illustration, raccoon 40 had a virus-neutralizing antibody titer of 1.3 units/ml at the time of challenge but died following inoculation with rabies virus, whereas raccoons 56 and 57 survived challenge with virus-neutralizing antibody titers of 0.6 unit/ml. Other raccoons, immunized i.m. or orally with V-RG, or parenterally with live ERA RV 194-2 virus, died following rabies inoculation despite titers in the range of 0.6-9.0 units/ml on the day of challenge (C.E.R., unpublished data). Clearly, virus-neutralizing antibody titer alone is unsuitable as the sole criterion of successful rabies immunization. A protective index may be defined for a particular study, but other factors besides specific humoral responses are important in host defense against rabies (23). It remains uncertain whether a minimum virus-neutralizing antibody titer can be correlated with protection."