The Lancet Infectious Disease
May 2012  Volume 12  Number 5  p355 – 422
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/issue/current

Newsdesk
Global rabies elimination: are we stepping up to the challenge?
Preview
A 1 year assessment of the Rabies Blueprint website, a detailed online guide developed to support countries aiming to eliminate canine rabies in an effort to prevent human rabies, shows that it has been successful in terms of outreach. “We know that visitors have come from virtually all continents, including 150 countries or territories and 1827 cities”, reports lead author Tiziana Lembo (University of Glasgow, UK, and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control, USA). “We are also aware that this toolkit is being used as a guide for the implementation of canine rabies control programmes in various places, for example the Philippines, Uganda, Benin, Afghanistan, Peru, Bolivia, Haiti, and Indonesia.

Media Watch
Eradication: ridding the world of diseases forever?
Salmaan Keshavjee
Preview
In this well researched and well written book, historian Nancy Leys Stepan uses the diaries and aspirations of Fred Soper—former Director General of the Pan American Health Organization, described in the book as an arch-eradicationist—to recount a social history of public health. In so doing, she critically analyses the very idea of eradication, exposes the weak scientific basis of many of the past century’s greatest battles against disease, and provides lessons for the challenges that lie ahead.

Advances in virus research 79: research advances in rabies
Hildegund CJ Ertl
Preview
Tragically, half of people infected with rabies are children aged younger than 15 years. Most tragic is that all of these deaths could have been prevented by appropriate postexposure prophylaxis consisting of wound cleaning, active immunisation with a safe rabies vaccine, and passive immunisation with a rabies immunoglobulin. The high cost of this prophylaxis prevents its use in low-income countries and, as a result, people die. The 486 page book with its 21 chapters written by experts is thus a welcome reminder that research into rabies has to continue to reduce its deadly toll.

Review
Passive immunity in the prevention of rabies
Leonard Both, Ashley C Banyard, Craig van Dolleweerd, Daniel L Horton, Julian K-C Ma, Anthony R Fooks
Preview
Prevention of clinical disease in those exposed to viral infection is an important goal of human medicine. Using rabies virus infection as an example, we discuss the advances in passive immunoprophylaxis, most notably the shift from the recommended polyclonal human or equine immunoglobulins to monoclonal antibody therapies. The first rabies-specific monoclonal antibodies are undergoing clinical trials, so passive immunisation might finally become an accessible, affordable, and routinely used part of global health practices for rabies.