Survival of a newborn from a pregnant woman with rabies infection

 

Qu Zhen-Yu¹, Li Guo-Wei², Chen Qiao-Ge³, Jiang Peng⁴, Liu Chang¹, Lam Alfred⁵

 

1 Department of Pathogenic Biology and Immunology, Luohe Medical College, Luohe, Henan 462002, PR China.

2 Department of Prevention and Control of Infectious diseases, Zhengzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Zhengzhou, Henan 472000, China.

3 Department of Anatomy, Henan Medical College, Zhengzhou, Henan 472000, China.

4 Department of Pathogenic Biology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan 472000, China.

5 School of Medicine and Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia.

 

ABSTRACT

 

Background

Rabies is very common in People’s Republic of China. Each year thousands of people die because of this disease, but rabies diagnosed in pregnancy is very rare.

 

Case Presentation

In this study, we report the case of a pregnant woman who was infected with the rabies virus after a dog bite. The symptoms of rabies appeared in labor and she died after pregnancy. Her baby and husband did not develop the disease.

 

Conclusion

The phenomenon that the newborn infant was healthy may be related to the protective role of placenta in resisting the invasion of the rabies virus or the absence of systemic viremia. The prompt administration of vaccines and anti-rabies immunoglobulin to the infant may have also contributed to his survival.

 

Key words: Rabies; Pregnant; Newborn baby

 

Funding

This work was supported by grants from colleges and universities to key research projects of Henan Province (no. 15B310007) to Zhen-Yu Qu.

 

Received: November 19, 2015.

Accepted: March 24, 2016.

Revised: April 2, 2016.

 

Correspondence: 64108580@qq.com

 

Competing interests

The authors declare that there are no competing interests.

 

Authors’ contributions

ZYQ directed the study, had full access to all the data, GWL involved in the case of epidemiological investigation, QGC and PJ were responsible for follow-up. Alfred Lam was responsible for the paper English modification and CL was responsible for professional guidance. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

 

doi: 10.1186/s40409-016-0068-5