Safety and Immunogenicity of Preexposure Rabies Vaccination in Children Infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1

There has been an alarming increase in the number of HIV-infected children worldwide [1]. Dog bites are a serious publichealth problem in developing countries, and one-fourth of chil-dren in Thailand have experienced animal bites [2]. We con-ducted this study to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity ofrabies vaccine in children infected with HIV type 1 (HIV-1).HDCV (human diploid-cell rabies vaccine, lot 0544, antigencontent of 9.3 IU/mL; Institut Merieux, Lyon, France) wasgiven to 13 HIV-1–infected children (study group) and 9 healthychildren (control group) as 1 injection of 1 mL into deltoidmuscle on days 0, 7, and 28. All subjects were seen on days 0,7, 14, 21, 28, 60, 90, 180, and 360. Blood was drawn for de-termination of titers of rabies-neutralizing antibody by therapid fluorescent focus inhibition test [3] on days 0, 7, 14, 21,28, 60, 90, 180, and 360. The CD4