Background: Rabies is an acute and fatal zoonotic viral disease that affects warm-blooded mammals. This disease is usually transmitted between humans and other animals through bites, scratches, or saliva from infected animals. Depending on the mortality rate of rabies, people sometimes experience mental stress after biting or contact. This condition is called mental stress toward rabies (Rabies Hysteria). Cases Report: In this study, we referred to seven cases of rabies hysteria, which were referred to the WHO Collaborating Center for Reference and Research on Rabies of Pasteur Institute of Iran. Conclusion: Studies have shown that the level of low awareness and the wrong attitude toward the disease aggravates medical hysteria. The health system should evaluate social knowledge and attitude.

In Vol. 2, No. 1, 2014, Journal of Medical Microbiology and Infection Diseases a paper entitled “Rabies in Iran: Past, Present and Future” was published. We are grateful to Dr. Alireza Gholami and colleagues for this fascinating paper. We read the paper with a great interest but there is one point that should be taken into consideration. The authors have claimed that the discovery of rabies goes back to 2300 BC, when the Greek philosophers and physicians described it as a dangerous disease caused by a mad dog biting [1]. However, there is no mention of the contribution of the Iranian or Islamic traditional medicine to this discovery. Many of the historical evidence suggest that the treatment of many infectious diseases, like rabies was based on research carried out by Iranian scientists. One of these leading (Persian) scholars was Avicenna (980-1037 AD), who had a great dominance in the treatment of infectious diseases such as rabies. The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanunphi-al-Tibb) which is one of the most important textbooks used in many medical specialties depict Avicenna’s research on rabies as well as his attempts to prevent the disease...

Rabies is a zoonotic disease, endemic mostly in Asia and Africa. Rabies virus belongs to the family Rhabdoviridae, genus Lyssavirus. Because infection with rabies virus has no cure and is life-threatening, vaccination is an important preventive measure to combat this disease in humans and animals. On the other hand, considering the limited availability of rabies vaccines in some of less developed countries with a higher rate of human rabies death each year, the need for an alternative strategy to produce a cost-effective and immunogenic vaccine against this disease is essential. In this review, we provide a brief overview of rabies vaccine development and its recent basic research. We also describe how viral vectors such as poxvirus vector, adenovirus replicons, and reverse genetics are manipulated for efficient novel formulated vaccines against this infection and we highlight possible future developments

Background: Rabies is a fatal infectious disease and rabies post-exposure prophylaxis is the method of choice for prevention of human rabies.Case series: We report rabies antibody levels in cord blood and also in serum of pregnant women who were bitten by suspected animals to rabies and were immunized by purified Vero cell rabies vaccine (PVRV) and Human Rabies immunoglobulin (HRIG) serum. During the years of 2007-2010, six pregnant women by the age range of 22-35 years were admitted in treatment and prevention of rabies center in Pasture institute of Iran, in Tehran. Among them two cases were at first trimester, one at second trimester and three at third trimester of conception. The interval between biting with delivery was 5-265 days (mean 121 days).Conclusion: Results of immunoglobulin illustrate that levels of rabies antibody in maternal sera with the fetus are not equal and uniform but it is proved that baby will find efficient immunity as well with minimum protective level of 0.5 IU/ml in all cases except a newborn whom had been born just 5 days after the mother’s immunization and in a shorter time than the appropriate immunization of the mother who had received her second vaccination courses.