Definitely, this does not change the glaring fact that if there is any significant fact you are exposed your best, only rational, course of action is to get the standard treatment. This medical development is only about cases when for some reason people missed the best-chance treatment and were too far advanced for the standard treatment to do any good. This is not an alternative to early conventional treatment.

It is more a medical Hail-Mary play that seems, so far, to have worked and is the first treatment that showed any promise once the patient showed symptoms. It has a long way to go to become accepted and may never be an alternative to the standard series of antibody shots.

People have to remember that this method starts with inducing a deep coma. Inducing coma is not done lightly because it has serious risks. These can only be justifies by the fact that the alternative is likely death.

So this development is good news. But it must not be taken as an excuse to avoiding conventional treatment for rabies exposure. If there is any significant risk that you have been exposed get thee to a hospital as fast as thou feet will allow. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200. Go directly to the hospital.