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Antibody Response in Respiratory Secretions of Volunteers Given Live and Dead Influenza Virus

From the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, Bethesda, Maryland and Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, University of Maryland Medical School, Baltimore, Maryland

Abstract

The nature of the neutralizing antibody response in respiratory secretions to influenza virus has been compared in two groups of human volunteers, one given live virus via the respiratory tract and the other given dead virus parenterally. The "live-virus group" showed an antibody response in sputum and nasal washing that was significantly greater in magnitude and longer in duration than it was in the "dead-virus group." There was no difference in the antibody response in saliva. In volunteers who were inoculated with live virus but showed no serum antibody rise, there was, nevertheless, a rise in sputum or nasal washing antibody. These results indicate that local infection is superior to parenteral immunization in inducing antibody in respiratory secretions.

Footnotes

¹ Present address: Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland.

² Present address, Department of Microbiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, Florida.