Hepatitis-associated antigen in liver disease in Kenya.

primary course of three injections, and samples of blood were obtained from 17 both before and after the primary course. Since the agglutinin response in most children was poor, a booster dose was offered and a final sample of blood was obtained in 12 cases. From Table II it can be seen that after the primary course most of the children did not have detectable antibody to all of the three pertussis agglutinogens, and there was no clear distinction between the three batches of vaccine. After a booster dose, however, most of the children had responded to antigens 1 and 2, but only vaccine X had stimulated a response to antigen 3. Corresponding differences between the three vaccines were found in vaccinated rabbits (Table III). Agglutinins 1 and 2 were produced in all three groups of rabbits; but agglutinin 3 was produced in high titre by vaccine X, in lower titre by vaccine Y, and not at all by vaccine Z. Discussion Though the numbers of children and animals in this investigation are small the results give a clear indication of the lines along which further study may be profitable. Perhaps the most striking result was the poor agglutinin response in children who were given three doses (at monthly intervals) of pertussis vaccine made in 1967. If these agglutinins are important in immunity (Preston, 1966) it would be desirable to determine the agglutinin response to current vaccines by an investigation similar to the one reported here. It would also be possible to compare plain vaccines with those containing adjuvant and to assess the relative efficacies of different immunization schedules. Moreover, it may be possible to predict, from the agglutinin response obtained in the rabbit, the likely response of the child to a batch of vaccine. Council to whom we are grateful for a grant to one of us (N.W.P.) which included the salaries of Miss B. L. Wilson and Mrs. A. Moretti, whose technical help we are glad to acknowledge. We also wish to record our gratitude to Dr. The presence of hepatitis-associated antigen in the serum of patients with acute viral hepatitis (Blumberg et al., 1967; Prince, 1968) and of patients with cirrhosis (Wright et al., 1969; Sherlock et al., 1970) suggests that there may be an aetiological relationship between these conditions. In Kenya viral hepatitis is a severe disease (Jindani et al., 1970) and cir-rhosis is often encountered. …