I understand the basics of vaccines and I get the rabies vaccine works, but in the instance where you are attacked by a rabid animal and bitten, how does getting the vaccine immediately help with the development of the disease? Is it not already in your bloodstream?
In: Biology
Rabies is a fairly slow virus. So it takes a long time to spread and multiply throughout your body. The rabies vaccine have a much higher viral load then any animal bite. So you have a bit of live rabies virus in you and get a lot of rabies vaccine. This high viral load triggers your immune system to generate antibodies against the rabies. If you had the same viral load of live virus then it would have already been able to multiply faster then the immune system can kill it. But since the vaccine is unable to multiply the immune system destroys the vaccine and then continues to destroy the live virus while the viral load is low.
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