Anti-tetanus vaccines
Bizzini, B.
Bollettino dell'Istituto Sieroterapico Milanese 62(6): 550-554
1983
ISSN/ISBN: 0021-2547 PMID: 6677267 Document Number: 217865
Antitetanus vaccination is the safest and more effective means to eradicate tetanus from the world. The vaccination success will depend on the intrinsic immunogenicity of the vaccine, on the one hand, and on the capacity of a subject to respond to the vaccine stimulation, on the other. To increase the vaccine immunogenicity and to enhance the vaccine immunocompetence, vaccines were potentiated with adjuvants. Mineral adjuvants, so far successfully employed, show some drawbacks. The use of fluid polymerized vaccines might offer an alternative to the use of absorbed vaccines. Another interesting development of the investigations in this field is the attempt to increase and modulate the immunological response to the toxoid favourably, by means of coupling to the toxoid compounds endowed with specific properties. Vaccines made up of subunits of the toxin molecule do not appear to have future development. On the contrary, a future approach to the antitetanus vaccination problem would be the design of a vaccine, made up of a synthetic oligopeptide simulating one of the antigenic determinants of the toxin molecule and involved in eliciting the formation of neutralizing antibodies. Besides, this vaccine should be very suitable for carrying out the oral vaccination.