The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention convened panels of anthrax experts to review and update guidelines for anthrax postexposure prophylaxis and treatment. The panels included civilian and military anthrax experts and clinicians with experience treating anthrax patients. Specialties represented included internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics, infectious disease, emergency medicine,...

Twenty-five strains of enterotoxigenic (tox(+)) Escherichia coli isolated in India, Bangladesh, and the U.S.A. were shown to produce vascular permeability factor (PF) activity as well as diarrheagenic activity. Sixteen strains of non-enterotoxigenic E. coli were found to be PF negative. The PF response elicited by tox(+)E. coli isolated in the U.S.A. from cases of infantile diarrhea was qualita...

A multi-dose injector to facilitate the immunization of horse by the ‘low dose, low volume multi-site’ protocol in antivenom/antitoxin production is described. With the device, 20 subcutaneous injections of about 0.1 ml of CFA emulsified immunogen around the horse’s neck could be easily accomplished within 3 minutes without any stress to the animal. Also described is an apron to prevent blister...

Although immunization with tetanus toxoid cannot be expected to produce an adequate permanent immunity, a number of investigators have confirmed and extended the observation of Ramon3 to the effect that an organism, once immunized, will respond to further injections of toxoid with an accelerated and increased antitoxin production. That this response to the "injection de rappel" does occur has b...

The most effective treatment for diphtheria is swift administration of diphtheria antitoxin (DAT) with conjunct antibiotic therapy. DAT is an equine immunoglobulin preparation and listed among the World Health Organization Essential Medicines. Essential Medicines should be available in functioning health systems at all times in adequate amounts, in appropriate dosage forms, with assured quality...

We have produced antitoxin to the toxin of Clostridium difficile in rabbits and in goats. Antitoxin dilutions of 1/8,000 and 1/5,120 were capable of neutralizing lethal doses of the toxin in mice and in tissue culture, respectively.

Toxin endoribonucleases of toxin/antitoxin (TA) systems regulate protein production by selectively degrading mRNAs but have never been shown to control other TA systems. Here we demonstrate that toxin MqsR of the MqsR/MqsA system enriches toxin ghoT mRNA in vivo and in vitro, since this transcript lacks the primary MqsR cleavage site 5'-GCU. GhoT is a membrane toxin that causes the ghost cell p...

Passive haemagglutination and IEOP have been used both to detect and to measure tetanus antitoxin in human donor sera. Forty percent of blood donors had detectable antitoxin but only 9% had levels suitable for production of human antitetanus immuoglobulin (larger than or equal to 2 IU/ml). The incidence of high titre antitoxin was significantly greater in men and was unrelated to the ABO blood ...

In a recent survey of the bacteriology of hand and finger infections, the opportunity has arisen to examine the characteristics of 60 strains of Staphylococcus pyogenes. Howard (1954) has shown a positive correlation between the number of flocculation lines produced by a strain grown at right angles to an antitoxin strip and the pathogenicity of the strain for mice. He also found these results ...