Human Infection Due to Recombinant Vaccinia–Rabies Glycoprotein Virus

Rabies in North America and Europe

“…In September 2000, a 28-year-old pregnant woman was bitten by her pet dog whilst attempting to remove a VRG bait from the dog's mouth. Material from the woman's wound was cultured in vitro and demonstrated a virus with a poxvirus morphology 17 . Although an isolated case, this incident may create dif®culties for VRG use near urban areas and emphasizes the need to prevent accidental human exposure when using VRG.…”

Rabies surveillance in the United States during 2004

“…Products used in oral vaccination programs are self-replicating, and the unintentional exposure of nontarget species, including human beings, must be minimized and monitored. 23,24 Overlaying the patterns of rabies virus maintenance among terrestrial mammals are multiple, independent reservoirs for rabies virus in several species of insectivorous bats. Rabies virus transmission among bats appears to be primarily intraspecific, and distinct virus variants can be identified for different bat species.…”

Detection of human orthopoxvirus infections and differentiation of smallpox virus with real‐time PCR

“…In Europe, only cowpox virus is known to circulate in the nature and to cause human infections. However, laboratory and vaccine use of vaccinia virus [Lewis et al, 2006] including recombinant vaccine viruses used, for example, for wildlife rabies vaccination [Rupprecht et al, 2001] has also caused human infections and/or complications and vaccinia virus has escaped to natural reservoirs on several occasions [Dumbell and Richardson, 1993;Damaso et al, 2000;de Souza Trindade et al, 2003]. Moreover, imported OPVs are always a possibility as seen during the emergence of monkeypox virus in the USA in 2003 [Anonymous, 2003;Reed et al, 2004].…”