Booster vaccination against tetanus and diphtheria: insufficient protection against diphtheria in young and elderly adul
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Booster vaccination against tetanus and diphtheria: insufficient protection against diphtheria in young and elderly adults Marco Grasse1, Andreas Meryk1, Michael Schirmer2, Beatrix Grubeck-Loebenstein1 and Birgit Weinberger1*
Abstract We have recently demonstrated that single shot vaccinations against tetanus and diphtheria do not lead to long-lasting immunity against diphtheria in elderly persons despite administration at 5 year intervals. In the present study we have immunized a group of young adults against tetanus and diphtheria to compare the pre- and 28 days post-vaccination immune responses in the young group with results of the same vaccination performed in an elderly group of a previous study. We also studied protection in both groups 5 years after vaccination. We compared antibody titers at all three time points and also analyzed the T cell responses in both age groups 5 years after vaccination. Before vaccination 9 % of the elderly persons were not protected against tetanus, and 48 % did not have protection against diphtheria. In the young group all participants were protected against tetanus, but 52 % were also unprotected against diphtheria before vaccination. 28 days after vaccination 100 % of all participants had protective antibody concentrations against tetanus and only a small percentage in each age group (
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