Please keep up the good work. Our results show that even moderately effective vaccines could have a significant effect on reducing tuberculosis epidemics if they can be coupled with moderate to high treatment rates. We suggest that both preexposure and postexposure tuberculosis vaccines can be used to help eliminate tuberculosis in developing countries. Fisher-Hoch SP, Hutwagner L, Brown B, McCormick JB Special Pathogens Branch, Division of Viral, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia. Recently, war in the zone where Lassa fever is hyperendemic has severely impeded control and treatment.
Vaccination is the most viable control measure.
There is no correlation between antibody levels and outcome in human patients, and inactivated vaccines produce high titers of antibodies to all viral proteins but do not prevent virus replication and death in nonhuman primates. Neither group had demonstrable antibody levels prior to challenge. We demonstrate that in primates, immune responses to epitopes on both glycoproteins are required to protect against lethal challenge with Lassa virus without having untoward side effects and that this protection is likely to be primarily cell mediated. We show that an effective, safe vaccine against Lassa virus can and should be made and that its evaluation for human populations is a matter of humanitarian priority. Officials with Elan Pharmaceuticals said they do not yet know whether the vaccine will prove effective at stopping Alzheimer's disease.