[Experience with anti-viral hepatitis B vaccine at an institution for handicapped children].

This study, conducted in an institute for handicapped children, is part of an overall effort to extend the anti-HBV vaccine to all high risk categories. Out of 50 patients, 24 (48%) registered negative results for all HBV markers. Twenty-three of these 24 (95.

Bacillus subtilis spores as a natural pro-host oral agent. Preliminary data in children.

The commercial preparation of Bacillus subtilis spores may be considered within the classification of biological response modifiers (BRM's) and included among exogenous natural substances. Recently we decided to study the effect of a long-term B. subtilis spores oral treatment in children suffering from recurrent infectious diseases of the respiratory tract.

[Active and passive immunoprevention of hepatitis B in newborn infants with HBsAg-positive mothers].

Infants born to HBsAg-positive mothers are at high risk of contracting perinatal hepatitis B infection. The prevention is based on active as well as passive immunoprophylaxis. We have used hepatitis vaccine in 18 newborns of as many HBsAg-positive mothers.

Preferential increase of a T-cell subset as a cause of lymphocytosis in children with whooping cough.

T-cell subsets were examined in 17 children with whooping cough, employing OKT3, OKT4, OKT6 and OKT8 monoclonal antibodies. The degree of lymphocytosis in patients was correlated with an increase in OKT4-(helper-inducer) positive cells. These findings support the hypothesis of a disturbance in the release rather than in the homing of lymphocytes.

[A disease that needs to be recognized: "importation malaria"].

The author's relieve the increase of number of the cases of malaria verified during the previous years in Italy, in subjects coming from malaria regions. The social and medical implications of this phenomenon are remarked. Epidemiology, pathology, immunology, clinical features and therapy of "imported malaria" are briefly elucidated.

[The importance of C-reactive protein (CRP) in scarlet fever diagnosis (author's transl)].

Scarlet fever, especially in the mild and attenuated forms, proposes considerable diagnostic problems. The Authors, on the basis of their cases, remark the importance of C-reactive protein (CRP) positivity. After comparing the high initial positivity of this aspecific index of illness to the bacteriological pharyngeal findings and to the movement of antibodies against the Streptococcus, they think that CRP in scarlet fever may have a punctual significance, also for the ease and the quickness of this test.