I am in kind of an unusual situation. I am unemployed and have no health insurance. I am moving to Mongolia for a while, and so would like to get the rabies shot preemptively due to the likelihood of encountering a rabid dogs in my future domicile.
In an earlier post on this board it was mentioned that veterinary rabies shot contains the same stuff as the human form. Being that a set of rabies shots can cost 5000 USD, I was hoping to get the first form of the vaccine.
I was wondering how someone might know of a way that I, being neither a vet, or a doctor, could go about getting this vaccine. Or perhaps a sympathetic vet tech living in MD that would be willing to smuggle out the vaccine for a 100 dollars or so.
When I was bit by a tick, I was able to get a supply of doxycyclene from those E-pharmacies in India, but this does not seem to be the case with the Rabies vaccine.
-Yes I am serious. Moving to Mongolia has been a dream of mine for a while. I need to find someplace a little less stifled by bureaucracy, where one can live free with their wits, their fists, hard work, and a lot of luck.
I let my rabies vaccine lapse and so had to get the full series over here a few years ago after being bitten by a seriouly scroungy looking dog. (I had inadvertently wandered too close to her litter of puppies.) US$5000 sounds like crazy money to me. I got the first shot at a private hospital right after being bitten, and that was pricey but nowhere near that level. Then I got the rest of the series at the local Red Cross here in Bangkok. I doubt I paid more than $100 total, IF that. Probably closer to $50-75.
Of course, being vaccinated entails many fewer jabs than the post-incident series. Are you sure about that price level? Rabies is not something you want to take a chance with.
Pre-exposure vaccination is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as post-exposure. The pre-exposure vaccination requires 3 shots, rather than 5 for post exposure.
This site gives some information on costs, which can range from $500 to $1,200 for the preventive series (not $7,000).
I’ve had the series several times before various projects that required me being in remote areas for a prolonged time. It surprises me the cost has gone up so much since the last time I had the series in the US. I’ve had the series in Panama, too. As I recall, it didn’t cost more than about $50.
If you’re going to rely on “a lot of luck,” then why bother getting the series before you’ve been bitten?
Well, it sounds like you want the movie version of the 30s and 50s and unfortunately movies are rarely like real life… economically it is clawing its way into third world status. politically it is figuring itself out. judicially, figure on getting the shaft if you have to appear in court. The judges will adamantly follow the law exactly as it is written, no negotiation and playing around with the spirit of the law vs the word of the law like in the US. Primary employment is herding [hope you have family there to work for] or mining, under pretty primitive conditions [think 1930s] Ba’s brother is a miner, and she reports he might as well be a slave, the pay is shit and the bosses don’t give a crap about the employees, just about how much product they can extract. Dirty, hard labor. Tourist industry? 60% of the population lives in urban areas. Unless you are fluent in mongolian, you better own your own car, and have maps, a god head for driving around because you can probably flog yourself off as some sort of tourist guide, just be sure to check that the old sov era laws are not in effect [you had to belong to the governments tour agency to be a guide and work with tourists.]
Good lord. OP, do you know anything at all about Mongolia? For example, can you speak the local language? Do you have any idea where you’d work? Do you know how you’d find a lawyer once trying to live with your fists went badly awry?
Wandering off to a distant land of which you know little is a good way to get yourself injured, imprisoned or killed. Possibly all three. Mongolia’s not a bad place, as developing countries go - but I’m willing to bet it would be more than tricky enough for an American with no language skills or experience in developing states.
I can sort of imagine Christopher McCandless posting something much like the OP: Into the Wild - Wikipedia
Finally: Understand that if you are bitten by a rabid animal, and do not get proper treatment, you will die. In agony. And madness. And terror. I truly don’t believe that there is a worse death, aside from deliberate torture. Even if you get the full set of pre-exposure shots (administered by a real doctor), you still need shots post-exposure as well. The pre-exposure series buys you additional time to get the post-exposure shots - the idea is that if you’re worried about being bitten out in the wild, or in places without medical care, you could need that extra time. But you’ll still get rabies if you don’t get the post-exposure shot.
That’s my understanding, anyway. I’m not a doctor. But you, OP, should talk to a doctor before going to Mongolia. A real one, not a pharm-tech friend or a vet. You may object that you can’t afford this - but if you don’t have sufficient savings to consult a physician before leaving the US, I don’t see how you could have enough money to set yourself up in Mongolia.
If you really want to see the world, you might want to look into joining the Peace Corps. You could get real training, do serious work, and actually be useful to the community you’d be placed in. That said, the Corps is very selective - but you could take the time to do volunteer work in the States for a few years, build up your resume to the point you’d be competitive. This would also give you the time to grow up a bit.
I am not sure about rabies, but a number of other canine vaccines are available in farm supply stores such as TSC (Tractor Supply Corp,.) www.kvvetsupply.com may have it too. I have been buying things there my local vet doesn’t carry.
Mr.Excellent, veterinarians are “real” non-human doctors, way better prepared in medicine and health sciences (and knowledgable about rabies) than a pharmacist-technician. Other than that, your comment is good.
And veterinarians are not going to give you the rabies vaccine intended for dogs. Heck, even vaccinated dogs get quarantined if there is suspicion that they may be rabid. All the vaccination does is lessen the quarantine time and lessen the possibility of someone saying “off with their head” so that it can be tested for rabies. And veterinarians get the human-approved, pre-exposure vaccines.
The difference between getting the three shots of pre-exposure vaccine and not getting them, has to do with getting one or two fewer post-exposure vaccines, and in not needing the anti-rabies immunoglobulin given to those without the pre-exposure vaccine series (under the assumption that your body already has some anti-rabies immunoglobulin).
As to your Mongolian trip, that is for someone else to comment.
Since you will need the post-exposure vaccine if you are bitten anyway, a rabies vaccine would be nice but not absolutely necessary, and it is certainly very expensive. I’ve lived in heavy-rabies areas for a long time, and have never been bitten. Just stay away from dogs, and if one does come pretend like you picking up rocks and throwing them at it.
I’ve been to Mongolia, and it’s a fascinating place.
I don’t, however, think they are particularly generously with their residence permits, and unless you can find a good reason to argue that you are contributing to Mongolia (which is going to be tough without a larger organization backing you up) you are going to be stuck with a limited-time tourist visa.
You might be able to find a gig teaching English in Ulan Bataar, but that is hardly the wild’n’free dream- the place is stuffed to the gills with tourists and not exceptionally exotic unless you find overly heated Soviet-style apartment blocs fascinating. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fun city. There are slick nightclubs, relaxing open-air backpacker bars, scrappy little museums and plenty of local color in the yurt-suburbs. But it’s no wild west.
It’s also not all that cheap, so unless you want to spend your days scrambling for work (which is likely going to be teaching pre-schoolers the alphabet in a dreary walk-up or tutoring bored middle-class teenagers) make sure you have some.
Stay at Zaya Hostel in U.B. She won’t rip you off on tours.
You’re absolutely right, and I apologize - vets deserve more respect than I gave them in my post. That said, I think we agree it would be profoundly inappropriate and unwise for a human to seek medical care from a vet (absent dire emergency).
I have had the pre-exposure vaccine and have also had to have post-exposure boosters. I volunteered at a wildlife rehab clinic and in order to work with skunks, raccoons, fox, groundhogs and bats you were required to have the vaccine.
It’s been a few years since I had the series, but we had 3 shots over a period of time, then our blood was taken and our titer checked. If we had sufficient titer, we were good to go for the next two years. We are supposed to have our titers checked regularly regardless of exposure. After two years they rechecked our titers and boosters given, if needed.
The clinic I was working in at the time did the series every two years in conjunction with a local (human) doctor. The doctor ordered the vials according to the number of people needing vaccinated. The doctor did not charge us for her time, only for the vaccine and titers. It still worked out to $150 per person or so. One vaccine vial has multiple doses, but is only good for a few days once opened, so it was more cost effective to vaccinate as many people as possible at once and not waste vaccine. The veterinarian on staff was not allowed by law to administer the human vaccine to the staff, although it was perfectly within her abilities.
Insurance did not cover the initial vaccine series. Insurance did cover a post exposure series after I was bitten by a semi-feral cat that refused to be trapped, but led me to believe that she would allow me to pet her. I eventually trapped her 3 years and multiple litters later.
Having had the pre-exposure series, I think I got three booster shots total, no immunoglobulin. My shots were day 1, day 7 and day 28. They did not check my titer. From what I hear, it is the Immunoglobulin shots that are a bitch. A friend was bitten in her hand and had to get 5-10 mL of Ig injected. They put as much as possible into the wound site and gave the rest in her butt. She found it painful. She went once a week for 4 weeks for the vaccine after being bitten.
Damn, I had no idea the vaccine was so expensive in the West. I did not pay for mine the first time, because it was gratis from Uncle Sam. I thought it was only two shots, but it could have been three, as I was getting so many others it would be easy for me to mix up the number of them.
But it certainly does not run into the thousands of dollars over here. I would urge the OP to stop off and spend some time in Bangkok or some other regional city where the vaccines are lower cost. And check with the local Red Cross, not a private hospital, but even the private hospital I went to first did not charge all that much for my first jab. (I recall all the rest of the series combined at the Red Cross cost about the same as just the first jab at the private hospital, maybe a bit less.) The one for rabies is absolutely essential. As a previous poster said, if you are bitten by a rabid animal and catch rabies, you WILL die without immediate treatment if you have not had the vaccine. Once symptoms appear, it’s too late, and no one can save you; all they can do is try to make you comfortable up to your death. I was foolish for letting my vaccine lapse, but I just got complacent.
Another one I would recommend is hepatitis A. Maybe hep B too, but A for sure. Catch that and you’re down for a period of months. What’s the Japanese-encephalitis situation in Mongolia by the way? That can result in permanent brain damage. Would it be possible for you to consult a travel-medicine clinic where you are?
This thread has been good for reminding me it’s been almost 10 years since the incident that prompted my series. That was in 2002 or 2003. I was thinking the vaccine needed a booster only every 10 years, but it sounds like people have been getting boosters at more frequent intervals?
BTW, as far as I know, the cost (for veterinary students) runs to around $600 for the whole pre-exposure series. A lot, yes, but it was not paid at once, but for each jab. And is nowhere near $7K.
I guess it’s moot because the OP is unemployed and without insurance, but I had no problem getting Blue Cross to pay for the vaccine years ago because it was required for work. Likewise, my physician includes a test of my rabies titer with my annual exam every 3 years or so, and it is also covered by routine insurance as a job necessity, so far without any hassles.
I’m curious about the unemployed with no insurance part. I assume the OP has at least some cash squirreled away. Otherwise, how cheap does he think it is to up and move to the other side of the world? The Third World may be comparatively cheap, but you can’t live off the fruit of the trees. (Not that Mongolia has any trees. Maybe he’s planning to tap some yak milk?)
EDIT: I thought Obama made it a law now that everyone gets insurance? Not that it would necessarily cover something like this. But I’ve not really paid much attention to the health-care debate in the US.
