The first batch of 7,000 rabies vaccine vials for 2023, which was shipped to Moldova last week, will be distributed at request. For these vaccines, the National Health insurance Company (CNAM) allocated over 879,000 lei from the prophylaxis measures fund. The ampoules were taken to the vaccine store of the National Public Health Agency.

Contacted by IPN for details, Veaceslav Guțu, head of the Agency’s Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Epidemiological Supervision Division, said that the rabies vaccines will be offered to medical institutions at request and if necessary, through the agency of the local public health centers. Such requests are made and their number grows each year.

The vaccine is administered in three shots after the person is bitten by an animal that is suspected of being infected with rabies or before such a situation, in the case of persons who work in the animal breeding sector, but this measure is recommendatory for them.

Moldova was also supplied with 37 rabies immunoglobulin vials for which the CNAM allocated over 23,000 lei. According to Veaceslav Guțu, this medicine is administered to persons with rabies and with symptoms. Such a number of vials is more than enough as the cases of infection with rabies are seldom. The people usually start to get the three vaccine doses immediately after they were bitten.

Both the rabies vaccine intended for grownups and children and the rabies immunoglobulin were made in India.

The second consignment of rabies vaccines is to be delivered to Moldova by the end of this year.