We present a case of a four-year-old boy who succumbed to diphtheria following incomplete course of immunisation, which included diphtheria vaccine. This case report focuses on the issues of parental refusal to vaccines and the development of "halal" vaccines for the prevention of infectious diseases.

116. Potency of a Human Monoclonal Antibody to Diphtheria Toxin Relative to Equine Diphtheria Anti-toxin in an Animal Model Heidi Smith, MD, PhD; Peter Cheslock, PhD; Mark Leney, PhD; Bruce Barton, PhD; Deborah Molrine, MD; MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Quantitative Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, ...

The introduction of routine vaccination against tetanus and diphtheria in Brazil has decreased the incidence and changed the epidemiology of both diseases. We then investigated the prevalence of Corynebacterium diphtheriae carrier status and diphtheria and tetanus immunity in São Paulo, Brazil. From November 2001 to March 2003, 374 individuals were tested for the presence of C. diphtheriae in t...

Biomedical research often requires primary cultures of specific cell types, which are challenging to obtain at high purity in a reproducible manner. Here we engineered the murine Rosa26 locus by introducing the diphtheria toxin receptor flanked by loxP sites. The resultant strain was nicknamed the Terminator mouse. This approach results in diphtheria toxin-receptor expression in all non-Cre exp...

We describe here three different hamster cell mutants which are resistant to diphtheria toxin and which provide models for investigating some of the functions required by the toxin inactivates elongation factor 2 (EF-2). Cell-free extracts from mutants Dtx(r)-3 was codominant. The evidence suggests that the codominant phenotype is the result of a mutation in a gene coding for EF-2. The recessiv...

An evaluation of the delayed fluorescence immunoassay (Delfia) against an ELISA method for determination of diphtheria antitoxin levels in serum was performed. The Delfia was also validated in the in vivo toxin neutralisation test (Txn) in rabbits. Two variants of the Delfia were studied, a single-antigen Delfia (sDelfia) with only the diphtheria toxin included and a dual-antigen Delfia (dDelfi...

Replacement of cellular with acellular pertussis (aP) vaccines has considerably reduced the systemic reactions observed with diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-pertussis vaccine but has not eliminated the extensive swelling (sometimes involving an entire limb) observed after the fifth injection of diphtheria-tetanus toxoids-aP (DTaP) vaccine. This local reaction, which is likely an Arthus hypersensitiv...

We report here the synthesis and properties of a hybrid toxin prepared by covalently coupling diphtheria toxin to transferrin. The purified material contained two major hybrid protein species and was highly cytotoxic to mouse LMTK- cells in culture, reducing protein synthesis by 50% in 24 h at a concentration of 1 ng/ml. Cytotoxic activity was completely abolished in the presence of exogenous t...

A DNA transfection method by laser microbeam pricking has been recently reported (Kurata, S. et al. Exp. Cell Res. 162, 372 (1986]. The volume of external fluid transferred into the cell by the method was determined through the injection of diphtheria toxin fragment A (Yamaizumi, M. et al. Cell 15, 245 (1978]. Using these results and the results on laser DNA transfection efficiency (Kurata, S. ...

OBJECTIVE The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends immunization of preterm infants at 2 months' chronological age with diphtheria-tetanus-acellular pertussis vaccine, regardless of birth weight and gestational age. Several investigators have reported an increased incidence of cardiorespiratory events in preterm infants after immunization. Consequently, many primary care providers do not ad...