IMMUNITY IN VOLUNTEERS RECOVERED FROM NON-BACTERIAL GASTROENTERITIS 1

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Afebrile acute infectious nonbacterial gastroenteritis is a common diarrhea that occurs yearly in families and communities. Whether recurrences are due to early waning of immunity or to immunologically distinct agents has not been determined. Following an attack of gastroenteritis evoked by the Marcy strain, which is presumably a virus, an effective immunity develops in volunteers. The purpose of this study was to determine whether immunity had persisted in 5 human volunteers following infection induced by oral inoculation of the Marcy strain of afebrile nonbacterial gastroenteritis. Four of the 5 men were brought together for reinoculation 15 months, and the 5th 9.5 months, after onset of the initial experimental illness. Active immunity was tested by feeding an aliquot of an inoculum demonstrated to be highly infectious. None of the 5 men had a 2d attack, indicating that immunity had lasted during the interim. The result supports the possibility that yearly recurrence of non-bacterial diarrheal disease may be due to separate nonbacterial agents, presumably viruses, or to anti-genically different strains of the same agent.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: