Disease

Question

I understand the rabies injection used to be injected into the stomach itself. Somewhere I read that it was into the stomach wall. Why did they do it this way? What were the advantages of injecting it into the stomach? Thank you for your time.

Answer

Dear Rach,<BR><BR>I am a librarian, not a doctor or epidemiologist, and I noticed that none of our&nbsp;health experts &nbsp;had responded to your question. Unfortunately, my research led to the same material you had already found.<BR><BR>From my reading, though, it appears that the vaccine was originally injected into the stomach <STRONG><EM>wall,</EM></STRONG> not the stomach itself. The advantages of injecting the vaccine intramuscularly&nbsp; were that muscle allows a better response rate than fatty tissue. That part was the from the FDA's "Rabies on the Rise", <A href=http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/996_rab.html">http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/996_rab.html</A><BR><BR>I also checked PubMed,&nbsp;<A href=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed">http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed</A>, a service of the National Library of Medicine and found this citation. You could contact your local library or health center library to find a copy. They might be able to obtain it through Interlibrary Loan or their subscription databases.<BR><BR>1:&nbsp; Thongcharoen P, Wasi C. <BR> Rabies vaccine: a century of development from rabbit's spinal cord to genetic<BR>engineering.<BR>J Med Assoc Thai. 1985 Jul;68(7):388-93. No abstract available. <BR>PMID: 3932575 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]<BR><BR>Please feel free to submit your question again. Since experts are notified of<BR>questions that match the categories they've selected, you might try a broader category. Perhaps Health?<BR><BR>Sincerely,<BR>Joyce W.<BR><BR><BR><BR> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/996_rab.html Rabies vaccine http://vrd.askvrd.org/services/answerschema.xml