[Study of the properties of a tissue smallpox vaccine manufactured by the Moscow Research Institute of Viral Preparations]

Abstract

The tissue culture vaccine against smallpox has some important advantages over the dermal preparation: it is free from bacterial contamination, contains no serum proteins, and suitable for intradermal inoculation with jet injections. The virus for the tissue culture smallpox vaccine is grown in Japanese quail embryo cultures controlled for the absence of contaminating viruses. In trials of the tissue culture smallpox vaccine in 800 revaccinated volunteers no untoward reactions or complications were observed. The antigenic activity of the tissue culture smallpox vaccine was superior to that of dermal vaccine used in the same dose: the geometric mean neutralizing antibody titre after vaccination with the tissue and dermal preparations was 1 : 256 and 1 : 158, respectively, and the antibody rise was 4.5- and 2.5-fold.