The appearance of very virulent strains of infectious bursal disease (IBD) virus at the end of the 1980s made it necessary to develop more effective immunization procedures. To facilitate this, the immunogenicity and the immunosuppressive effect of a mild (G-87), an intermediate (LIBD) and an intermediate-plus (IBDV 2512) IBDV strain were tested after the in ovo inoculation of 18-day-old SPF an...

The novel avian influenza A(H7N9) infection has recently emerged to cause severe respiratory illness in China. The objectives of this study were to define the kinetics of the antibody responses in patients with influenza A(H7N9) disease and to correlate these kinetics with clinical outcome. Serial serum samples were obtained at intervals of three to four days from 18 patients with virologically...

Toxic effects of Aflatoxin B1 on growth performance and humoral immune response against Newcastle disease Virus (NDV) vaccine were determined in Japanese quails. Quail chicks (n=300) were divided into five groups and each group was further sub-divided into two subgroups. One subgroup of each group was vaccinated with NDV vaccine to study the antibody response. Experimental diets were prepared b...

The modification of Paul and Bunnell's (1932) original haemagglutination test for glandular fever described by Davidsohn (1937) which is used in its original or further modified forms in most laboratories, while simple to perform, is time consuming both in execution and in the delay before reading. Butt and Foord (1935) had claimed that, if sera which showed a positive Paul-Bunnell titre were m...

INTRODUCTION Illness and death from influenza increase during pregnancy. In the United Kingdom pregnant women were targeted in a national programme for vaccination during the H1N1 2009-10 pandemic. METHODS In this study, pregnant women were recruited in labour from November 9, 2009 to March 10, 2010. Pandemic vaccination status was determined. Venous cord blood collected at delivery was evalu...

Avian influenza is a disease of economic and public health importance that has been described in most domestic animals and humans. Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 epidemic in Nigeria was observed in agro -ecological zones where pigs and chickens are raised in shared environment with chances of interspecies transmission. We investigate the likelihood of transmission of the disease to pigs...

A comparison of the indirect haemagglutination test (IHAT) with the dye test (DT) in 23 infants with congenital toxoplasmosis showed that in the early part of the first year of life the IHAT titres were nearly all lower than the DT titres. In six cases the IHAT was negative or the titre was so low that the cases could have been missed in routine screening. Later in the first year the IHAT titre...

INTRODUCTION For pathogens such as influenza that cause many subclinical cases, serologic data can be used to estimate attack rates and the severity of an epidemic in near real time. Current methods for analysing serologic data tend to rely on use of a simple threshold or comparison of titres between pre- and post-epidemic, which may not accurately reflect actual infection rates. METHODS We p...

OBJECTIVE To assess the antibody response to influenza vaccine of children vertically infected with HIV. DESIGN Prospective study in HIV infected children vaccinated during the winter of 1994-5. SETTING Family HIV clinic at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. SUBJECTS 25 children, aged 1-11 years, vertically infected with HIV. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Responses to influenza antigens (H1N1-A/Ta...

OBJECTIVE To elucidate the role of current syphilis as a risk factor for foetal death. METHODS Sera were obtained from 57 women with third trimester foetal death (cases) and 58 women with foetus alive (controls) matched for age and parity. All sera reactive in qualitative Rapid Plasma Reagin (RPR) analyses were tested with serial twofold dilutions to determine endpoint flocculation titres and...