Determination of antibodies to pertussis toxin in working reference preparations of anti-pertussis sera from various national control laboratories.

Working reference preparations of anti-pertussis sera from various National Control Laboratories were assayed for anti-PT antibodies by standardized ELISA and toxin neutralization (Nt) test. Both the ELISA and Nt tests gave highly reproducible results for various preparations when these preparations were assayed repeatedly on different days. Various working reference preparations were assigned units against the proposed International standard for anti-pertussis serum (JNIH-10) assuming its unitage of 250.

Determination of circulating antibodies directed to pertussis toxin and of agglutinogens in children vaccinated with either the whole cell or component pertussis vaccine in France, Japan and Senegal.

The antibody response to pertussis toxin (PT) and agglutinogens of children vaccinated in Japan, France and Senegal with either whole cell or component pertussis vaccine was determined at various times after immunization. Agglutinin titres were almost similar in sera of Japanese children vaccinated with either whole cell or component pertussis vaccine whereas anti-PT antibody levels were found to be higher after vaccination with whole cell vaccine than with component vaccine. The geometric mean (GM) agglutinin titres in sera of Japanese children amounted to 45.