- (CNN) -- A vaccine maker is recalling thousands of doses
of rabies vaccine after one product lot tested positive for the live vaccine.
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- The doses with the live vaccine, which could give someone
rabies, were not distributed.
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- But Aventis Pasteur is recalling four other batches of
Imovax as a precaution, the Lyon, France-based company said Friday.
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- The recalled vaccine, made in Lyon, was distributed between
September 23, 2003, and April 2, 2004, the company said in a statement.
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- Rabies vaccine is made by inactivating -- killing --
live virus. Injections of the killed virus then stimulate the body's own
immune system to develop antibodies that would kill live virus.
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- That process went awry at the company's plant in Lyon,
where a bulk vaccine filter failed, said Len Lavenda, in a telephone interview
with CNN from the company's U.S. headquarters in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania.
The filter has been fixed.
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- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
the risk to anyone who may have received the vaccine is small, but cautioned
that people who received rabies vaccine in those months should contact
their health care providers.
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- Two groups of people get rabies vaccine: those who have
been bitten by an animal that is rabid or suspected of being rabid, and
those at risk of being bitten -- such as veterinarians, zookeepers and
people traveling to regions where rabies is common.
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- Last year, in the United States, about 18,000 people
at risk of being bitten got the vaccine as a prevention and another 40,000
got it after being bitten.
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- The only people who need to do something as a result
of the recall are those who received the vaccine preventively, Lavenda
said. The others, in addition to getting the vaccine, would have been given
immune globulin, which contains antibodies that kill live virus. Aventis
will pay for those people to get an injection of immune globulin, he said.
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- The company is also recalling vaccines that were distributed
to 18 other countries, and will be sending its customers information about
the recall on Monday, Lavenda said.
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- Rabies is a viral infection that is mostly associated
with animals. Humans contract it by being bitten by an infected animal,
the company said.
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- Human rabies is rare in the United States: Since 1990,
39 cases have been diagnosed.
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- http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/04/03/vaccine.recall/index.html
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