Bancroftian filariasis infection, disease, and specific antibody response patterns in a high and a low endemicity community in East Africa

Abstract. Bancroftian filariasis infection, disease and specific antibody response patterns in a high and a low ende-micity community in East Africa were analyzed and compared to assess the relationship between these parameters and community transmission intensity. Overall prevalences of microfilaremia and circulating filarial antigenemia were 24.9% and 52.2 % in the high and 2.7 % and 16.5 % in the low endemicity community, respectively. A positive history of acute attacks of adenolymphangitis was given by 12.2 % and 7.1 % of the populations, 4.0 % and 0.9 % of the adult ( 20 years old) individuals presented with limb lymphedema, and 25.3 % and 5.3 % of the adult males had hydrocele, in the high and the low endemicity community, respectively. Both infection and disease appeared earlier and reached much higher levels in the high than in the low endemicity community. The observed overall and age-specific infection and disease patterns in the two communities were in agreement with the view that these are primarily shaped by transmission intensity. No statistically significant relationships between infection status of fathers and mothers and that of their children were observed in any of the communities for either microfilaremia or for circulating filarial antigenemia. The overall levels (prevalence and geometric mean intensity) of filarial-specific IgG1, IgG2, IgG4, and IgE were significantly higher in the high endemicity community than in the low endemicity community. Surprisingly, the opposite pattern was found for IgG3. Community transmission intensity thus appears to be an important determinant of observed inter-communit

An Assessment of the Role of Chimpanzees in AIDS Vaccine Research

Prior to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)-infected macaques becoming the ‘model of choice’ in the 1990s, chimpanzees were widely used in AIDS vaccine research and testing. Faced with the continued failure to develop an effective human vaccine, some scientists are calling for a return to their widespread use. To assess the past and potential future contribution of chimpanzees to AIDS vaccine development, databases and published literature were systematically searched to compare the results of AIDS vaccine trials in chimpanzees with those of human clinical trials, and to determine whether the chimpanzee trials were predictive of the human response. Protective and/or therapeutic responses have been elicited in chimpanzees, via: passive antibody transfer; CD4 analogues; attenuated virus; many types and combinations of recombinant HIV proteins; DNA vaccines; recombinant adenovirus and canarypox vaccines; and many multi-component vaccines using more than one of these approaches. Immunogenicity has also been shown in chimpanzees for vaccinia-based and peptide vaccines. Protection and/or significant therapeutic effects have not been demonstrated by any vaccine to date in humans. Vaccine responses in chimpanzees and humans are highly discordant. Claims of the importance of chimpanzees in AIDS vaccine development are without foundation, and a return to the use of chimpanzees in AIDS research/vaccine development is scientifically unjustifiable