Case Report: Survival from Clinical Rabies in a Young Child from Maharashtra, India, 2022

Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2023 Oct 2:tpmd220683. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.22-0683. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTA 3.5-year-old male child from Maharashtra, India, presented with features of meningoencephalitis approximately 1 month after sustaining severe bite injuries on the right hand from a stray dog. He had received four doses of post-exposure intradermal rabies vaccination (on days 0, 3, and 7 of the bite and erroneously on day 20, instead of day 28 as recommended in the updated Thai Red Cross regimen) as well as local and systemic injections of equine rabies immune globulin. The child was initially diagnosed with and treated for acute encephalitis syndrome before rabies encephalitis was confirmed by detection of rabies virus neutralizing antibodies in the cerebrospinal fluid. During the emergent period, he also received the antimalarial drug artesunate, recently reported to have antiviral effects against rabies virus. With intensive and supportive care, the child showed substantial clinical improvement over the next few weeks. He has now survived for more than 10 months after disease onset, albeit with severe neurological sequelae including diffuse cerebral and cerebellar atrophy.PMID:37783454 | DOI:10.4269/ajtmh.22-0683

Source: Am J Trop Med Hyg - October 2, 2023 Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Padinjaremattathil Thankappan Ullas Chandhu Balachandran Nikhil Pathak Yadav Prasad Manikrao Shailesh Rathod Daya Vishal Pavitrakar Vijay Parashramji Bondre Priya Abraham Source Type: research