Introduction: Hepatitis B is a disease caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV), which is transmitted through percutaneous (i.e., puncture through the skin) or mucosal (i.e., direct contact with mucous membranes) exposure to infectious blood or body fluids. HBV can cause chronic infection, resulting in cirrhosis of the liver, liver cancer, liver failure, and death. Persons with chronic infection a...

Tick-borne encephalitis is a viral disease affecting the central nervous system. It is endemic in Switzerland with 200-250 notified cases annually. Active immunization is effective for persons in all age groups. Vaccine failure is rare, in particular after a completed vaccination course. Here, we describe the case of 67-year-old man with a fatal outcome despite vaccination. The diagnosis was co...

In some cases vaccination is unreliable. For example vaccination against pertussis has comparatively high level of primary and secondary failures. To evaluate efficiency of vaccination we introduce the idea of effective vaccination rate and suggest an approach to estimate it. We consider pertussis in New Zealand as a case study. The results indicate that the level of immunity failure for pertus...

major histocompatibility complex (mhc) class ii deficiency is a primary immunodeficiency disease characterized by abnormality of mhc class ii molecules surface expression on peripheral blood lymphocytes and monocytes. clinical manifestations include extreme susceptibility to viral, bacterial, and fungal infections but the immunodeficiency is not as severe as scid (severe combined immunodeficien...