Golf-Mil Veterinary Hospital - Veterinarian In Niles, IL USA

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New Feline Vaccines

The number of rabies cases for felines (outdoors and indoors) is a growing threat in the U.S., now surpassing the number of rabies cases for dogs!

Golf-Mil Veterinary Hospital is pleased to announce a new safer alternative rabies vaccine specifically for cats. Until now, we have been using the Merial Imrab 3™ vaccine which is a 3 year injectable and is a killed Rabies vaccine.

What is the new vaccine?

The new rabies vaccine we are recommending is the Merial PureVax™ injectable feline rabies vaccine. This new vaccine uses the live canarypox virus, which cannot replicate in mammals.

Why the change?
The non-adjuvanted PUREVAX® vaccine helps protect cats from rabies with reduced risk of injection site reactions and chronic inflammation due to adjuvants. The PureVax™ vaccine does not contain adjuvants, as all other rabies vaccines do. Adjuvants are substances added to a killed vaccine to increase the body’s immune response to the vaccine (since the virus is killed and doesn’t stimulate an adequate response on its own). Unfortunately adjuvants have been known to cause anaphylactic vaccine reactions, and significantly increase the risk of vaccine associated sarcomas (cancer at vaccination sites) which can occur in cats.

What else is different?
The PureVax™ vaccine is an annual vaccine, and is not yet licensed for three years, although studies are in progress currently to prove immunity for three years. The newly introduced Merial PureVax™ feline rabies vaccine is currently the safest feline rabies vaccine on the market.

Summary:

Our recommendation for rabies vaccine in cats is to vaccinate with the Merial PureVax™ vaccine annually for all cats under seven years of age as well as all cats that go outdoors. For cats seven years and older we recommend vaccination with the Merial PureVax™ vaccine every three years unless the cat goes outdoors in which case we would recommend annual vaccination. While we will continue to offer the Merial Imrab 3™ vaccine, we would strongly recommend that you consider the Merial PureVax™ as a safer alternative. Although the annual duration may be an inconvenience, we feel that the peace of mind associated with a safer vaccine is well worth it.