Diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis immunity among healthcare professionals and pregnant women in the Moscow region, Russian federation: A preliminary cross-sectional study.

Despite more than 50 years of primary immunization against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus in Russia, complicated illnesses, including fatal ones, still occur. The goal of this preliminary cross-sectional study is to see how well pregnant women and healthcare workers are protected against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus. The required sample size (pregnant women and healthcare professionals, as well as pregnant women of two age categories) for this preliminary cross-sectional study was calculated using a confidence value of 0.

Antigenic divergence between Bordetella pertussis clinical isolates from Moscow, Russia, and vaccine strains.

We analyzed temporal changes in the frequencies of the ptxA, prn, fim2, and fim3 alleles in Bordetella pertussis strains isolated from pertussis patients in Moscow, Russia, from 1948 to 2004. The three strains used for the whole-cell vaccine harbored the alleles ptxA2, ptxA4, prn1, fim2-1, and fim3A. Vaccine-type alleles of ptxA (ptxA2 and ptxA4) were characteristic for all prevaccination strains and for 96% of the strains isolated in the 1960s and 1970s.