500 people received recalled rabies vaccine

Evelyn Ring

They are being advised to contact the doctor or travel centre who administered the vaccine.

The recall followed a test by Aventis Pasteur MSD Limited at the company’s operations in France which revealed a low level of contamination with live weakened rabies virus in a single batch. The batch was rejected and never released to the market.

The Irish Medicines Board, which is in close consultation with the French regulatory authorities and Aventis, said the company was recalling all batches of the vaccine manufactured at its French facility around the same time as the contaminated batch as a maximum precautionary measure.

The board’s director of human medicines, Dr Joan Gilvarry, stressed that the risk of potential harm ranged somewhere between nil to negligible and those people who received the vaccine after October 24, 2003, should not be unduly concerned. “Every batch released from the French facility passed all the European Standards and all the US and FDA standards and an inactivation test,” she said.

For those going on holidays to places where the vaccine is desirable, between one and three doses are administered.

Five doses are administered occasionally to people returning to Ireland and are concerned they may have been exposed to the virus.

An alternative source for this vaccine is licensed in Ireland and sufficient supplies are being made available in order to meet the demand.

A question and answer document is available on the IMB and the National Disease Surveillance Centre websites at www.imb.ie and www.ndsc.ie.