External quality assessment for the determination of diphtheria antitoxin in human serum.

Accurate determination of diphtheria toxin antibodies is of value in determining the rates of immunity within broad populations or the immune status of individuals who may be at risk of infection, by assessing responses to vaccination and immunization schedule efficacy. Here we report the results of an external quality assessment (EQA) study for diphtheria serology, performed within the dedicated surveillance network DIPNET. Twelve national laboratories from 11 European countries participated by testing a standard panel of 150 sera using their current routine method: Vero cell neutralization test (NT), double-antigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA; DAE), dual double-antigen time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay (dDA-DELFIA), passive hemagglutination assay (PHA), toxin binding inhibition assay (ToBI), and in-house or commercial ELISAs.

Screening for Corynebacterium diphtheriae and Corynebacterium ulcerans in patients with upper respiratory tract infections 2007-2008: a multicentre European study.

Diphtheria is now rare in most European countries but, when cases do arise, the case fatality rate is high (5-10%). Because few countries continue to routinely screen for the causative organisms of diphtheria, the extent to which they are circulating amongst different European populations is largely unknown. During 2007-2008, ten European countries each screened between 968 and 8551 throat swabs from patients with upper respiratory tract infections.

[Comparative evaluation of intestinal microflora in infants on artificial feeding with various milk formulas].

The intestinal microflora was studied in 58 normal full-term infants kept on different types of feeding. The data obtained indicate that the transfer of infants from natural to artificial feeding was attended by changes in the intestinal biocenosis, with these changes being most demonstrable as a result of the use in the feeding of unadapted milk formulas. The feeding with adapted milk formulas (the acidophilic formula Malyutka, Malyutka with a new fatty composition, Detolact) compares very favourably with the feeding with unadapted formulas as regards its effect on the intestinal biocenosis.