The most recent such shortage, in 2009, required public health officials to ration rabies shots.
In the U.S., just two to three people are infected with rabies each year.
In this case, a little genetic engineering convinced vaccinia to produce an important rabies antigen.
FORBES: A Pox On Your House? How Fighting One Disease Brought Back Another
Typically no more than three cases of rabies are diagnosed in the US yearly.
The donor died of raccoon rabies in Florida in 2011 after moving there from North Carolina.
In 2004, four people died when tainted organs and tissue were taken from a rabies-infected donor.
Also, many lifesaving organs would be lost if the donors were tested for rabies.
Kuehnert said the recipients' doctors were shocked to learn the donor's organs were tainted with rabies.
The CDC quickly determined that both donor and recipient died from the raccoon-type rabies virus.
Organ donors are not routinely tested for rabies, even if they show the signs.
Animals arriving from certified rabies-free nations will not be forced to spend any time in quarantine.
However the Californian authorities argue the ban is justified because ferrets can spread diseases like rabies.
"We essentially have all the tools we need to control rabies, " she told the BBC.
Ed Callaway at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, does so using rabies viruses.
She suggested that spending money on tackling rabies would have a tremendous health impact.
In 1885, French chemist Louis Pasteur successfully treated a patient with his anti-rabies vaccine.
The rabies virus can be found in all parts of the country except for Hawaii.
This category makes up nearly two-thirds of all human infectious diseases, including rabies, Ebola and malaria.
The danger is that they will spread deadly disease, in particular rabies, which is rife in India.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Bird groups hopeful on vultures
The researchers said that rabies was more likely after the bite of a stray or rabid dog.
In the 1970s, the first vaccines made from weakened rabies virus grown in cell culture became available.
Recently the two islands worked together on posters about rabies prevention and the importation of animal products.
It marks the second time organ transplant recipients have fallen ill with rabies in the United States.
Canine vaccines are very cheap in comparison with the drugs needed to treat humans infected with rabies.
Dubious veterinary thinkers spread a theory that dogs could acquire rabies spontaneously as a result of forced celibacy.
Rabid wild animals can have unusually aggressive behavior and can transmit rabies to humans and to their pets.
FORBES: A Pox On Your House? How Fighting One Disease Brought Back Another
With human populations mixing more and more freely with wild animal populations, the risk of rabies exposures increases.
FORBES: A Pox On Your House? How Fighting One Disease Brought Back Another
Giery said the donor wasn't tested for rabies because his symptoms didn't raise a red flag for infection.
Officials then re-examined the donor's death and determined the donor also died of rabies, according to the CDC.
This is not a surprise to many medical folks who have had to give rabies prophylaxis after bat exposures.
FORBES: A Pox On Your House? How Fighting One Disease Brought Back Another
应用推荐