Polysaccharide (PS) based meningococcal vaccines are primarily evaluated by physicochemical methods to ensure batches are consistently manufactured. As PS content is determined by different methods across numerous laboratories, there is a need for International Standards (IS) to calibrate the assays. Following the successful introduction of the WHO Meningococcal group C (MenC) IS in 2011, NIBSC...

An outbreak of 7 cases of group C meningococcal disease occurred during the last week of July and the first week of August 2001 in the southwestern part of The Netherlands. Characterization of the 7 patients' isolates by various typing methods showed that the isolates were identical, except for the expression of PorA. Isolates from 5 patients were PorA deficient. These results show that transmi...

polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccine adults in more developed countries: the state of the evidence. Lancet Infect Dis 2003;3:71–8. 8 Alfageme I, Vazquez R, Reyes N, et al. Clinical efficacy of anti-pneumococcal vaccination in patients with COPD. Thorax 2006;61:189–95. 9 Lexau CA, Lynfield R, Danila R, et al. Changing epidemiology of invasive pneumococcal disease among older adults in the era of ...

BACKGROUND The brucellae are facultative intracellular bacteria that cause brucellosis, one of the major neglected zoonoses. In endemic areas, vaccination is the only effective way to control this disease. Brucella melitensis Rev 1 is a vaccine effective against the brucellosis of sheep and goat caused by B. melitensis, the commonest source of human infection. However, Rev 1 carries a smooth li...

Immunoglobulin (Ig) A deficiency has long been recognized in patients with chromosome 18 abnormalities. We present the case of a young girl in whom a chromosome 18p deletion syndrome (46,XX,del[18][p11.1]) was associated not only with IgA deficiency, but also with an inability to make antibody to the unconjugated pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, Pneumovax II, indicating a concomitant specif...

Epidemic meningococcal meningitis is an important public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Current control measures rely on reactive immunizations with polysaccharide (PS) vaccines that do not induce herd immunity and are of limited effectiveness in those under 2 years of age. Conversely, polysaccharide conjugate vaccines are effective in infants and have consistently shown an important eff...

A vaccine to prevent infections from the emerging Neisseria meningitidis X (MenX) is becoming an urgent issue. Recently MenX capsular polysaccharide (CPS) fragments conjugated to CRM197 as carrier protein have been confirmed at preclinical stage as promising candidates for vaccine development. However, more insights about the minimal epitope required for the immunological activity of MenX CPS a...

Streptococcus pneumoniae remains a major cause of acute respiratory infections worldwide and is responsible for approximately 1 million childhood deaths each year. Despite the widespread use of antibiotics, the mortality and morbidity of pneumococcal disease remains high. Therefore, effective vaccines to prevent pneumococcal disease are needed. Bacterial vaccine development in general follows a...

This experiment was conducted to assess the efficacy of typhoid vaccine newly produced by purifying Vi antigen of Salmonella typhi. With Karber method, LD50 of challenging organism (S. typhi ty2) was determined as 6.31 CFU/mouse, and then the organism was used for the study. With Probits method, ED50 of the vaccine was determined as 0.016 microg / 0.5 ml / mouse. The ELISA titer (0.5097+/-0.060...

The development of effective meinigococcal vaccines was based upon the finding that immunity to the meningococcus was directly correlated with serum bactericidal antibodies. Purified high molecular weight capsular polysaccharides of serogroups A and C meningococci stimulated the production of humoral antibodies which had group specific bactericidal activity. In controlled field trials in Army...