Faculty Bibliography

A single-blind, multicenter, phase II trial of yeast recombinant hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccines containing surface antigen (S) alone or with PreS2 (PreS2 + S) was conducted in 282 healthy HBV-seronegative adults aged 20-59 years. Each volunteer was randomly assigned to receive HBV vaccine containing 10 micrograms of S or one of three doses of PreS2 plus S: 2 + 10 micrograms, 4 + 20 micrograms, or 8 + 40 micrograms. The level of antibody to HBV surface antigen reached depended on the dose of S, not PreS2, received. In each vaccine group, volunteers 20-39 years old had higher titers of anti-PreS2 and antibody to S than those 40-59 years old. The age-related effect on immune response to HBV vaccination suggests that adults should be immunized against hepatitis B at as early an age as possible and that older persons may need a higher dose or booster immunizations to achieve durable immunity.

The Yale scientist who accidentally became infected with the Sabia virus with which he was working was discharged from Yale-New Haven Hospital on Aug 29, 1994. Health officials said no secondary cases have developed among 5 people with whom the scientist had close contact and 75 laboratory workers who examined him or handled his specimens. He is only the third human known to be infected with the virus

At the request of federal officials, Yale University has temporarily halted research into the sabia virus, the rare virus that infected a university scientist in a laboratory accident in Aug 1994. Connecticut officials said that there were no plans to close the lab where the accident occurred

Epidemiologists are assuming that Sabia virus has an incubation period of about 12 days, as do other members of what is known as the arenavirus family. The head of the Arborvirus Research Unit at Yale, Dr. Robert E. Shope, said in an interview that the researcher's incubation period was shorter, perhaps because he was exposed to a relatively large amount of virus in the laboratory accident. The laboratory accident and the surveillance drill to contain Sabia virus are eerily reminiscent of another laboratory accident that occurred in the same laboratory at Yale in 1969, when a team was in the process of discovering the Lassa fever virus. The Yale laboratory is one of three that is studying Sabia virus. Dr. Shope's team divided the samples and sent portions to the other two: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the U.S. Army laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Md

New York City and federal health officials reported on Aug 18, 1994 that an 11-month-old boy with a mysterious case of AIDS was most likely infected with HIV in a New York City hospital when he was less than two weeks old. Susan Blank of the New York City Health Department said that 'no overt breaches in standard infection control' had been found at the hospital, where health workers have been trained in standard infection-control measures

In findings that bear directly on the question of how to prevent mother-to-infant transmission of the AIDS virus, two new studies from scientists in New York show that the likelihood of infecting offspring rises with the amount of the virus in a pregnant woman's blood. The studies, from researchers in the New York State Health Department, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and New York University, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, are believed to be the first to measure the amount of HIV in infected women during pregnancy and at delivery and in the infant during the first months of life