Can Rabies Vaccines be given with or after COVID-19 Vaccines and Vice Versa?
Abstract
Rabies is a dreaded disease and kills about 59,0001 persons every year. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has also killed about 3.9 million2 people since it started last year in 2020. The recent fast track development of vaccines against COVID-19 has emerged as a hope to contain the pandemic. Questions are being asked about whether one can take rabies vaccine with or after COVID-19 vaccination and vice versa. Rabies is caused by a single-stranded RNA virus belonging to Lyssavirus genus of the family Rhabdoviridae. These viruses are enveloped and have a single-stranded RNA genome with negative-sense and cause neurological symptoms and encephalitis. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) is a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus that causes the potentially lethal COVID-19 respiratory tract infection. This new SARS-CoV-2 virus belongs to the genus Betacoronavirus, which also includes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The doctors fear any adverse cross-reaction between the two vaccines because both rabies and COVID-19 viruses are RNA viruses.
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