[Increasing the effectiveness of immunotherapy of rabies by using rifampicin in experimental studies].

The experiments showed that in a dose of 35-70 mg/kg rifampicin inhibited reproduction of the fixed rabies virus in the brain of infected animals. The drug had no inhibitory effect on synthesis of the virus-neutralizing antibodies after vaccination. Combination of rifampicin with antirabies gamma-globulin had a marked synergistic effect. The animal survival after the combination use amounted to 75-100 per cent and depended on the infective dose of the virus and the scheme of the drug administration. It was concluded that rifampicin might be used in complex therapy of rabies during the incubation period (along with gamma-globulin and the vaccine) for inhibiting virus reproduction at early infection stages.