Sero-immune patterns for poliomyelitis and mumps in children of nomad Lapps.

Abstract

The incidence of antibodies to poliomyelitis among different age-groups and populations has been the object of numerous investigations. These have been designed to elucidate the rising age a t which persons become affected by clinically manifest poliomyelitis as social standards improve, and, before introducing widespread immunization to the infection, to gain an impression of the incidence of spontaneously developing antibodies. It has been shown in many investigations carried out in tropical and subtropical regions [2-5, 8, 10, 13-15] by a variety of methods that the incidence of poliomyelitis antibodies is very high even at an early age. Paul & Horstmann [15] found antibodies to one type of poliomyelitis in 87-95 % of Casablanca children aged 5-9 years, and antibodies to all three types among 78%. The increase in antibodies commences immediately after the maternal antibodies disappear, which means that the virus is heavily distributed throughout the local community. Gajdusek, Rogers & Bankhead [3] reported similar findings among children of the same age group from the jungles of Bolivia and Peru: all 26 children whom they examined