[Immune response to influenza vaccination]

The present study investigated the level of immunity of the population against three strains of the influenza virus (A Chile/1/83 -A Philippines/2/82 and B URSS/100/83) before and three months after vaccination, and the immune response to whole virus vaccine as compared with fragmented virus vaccine. A high percentage of the population had titers greater than or equal to 1/10 before vaccination for the Chile (54%) and Philippines (65.7%) strains, while titers against the URSS strain were lower (25.4%). There was a definitive increase in antibody titer in the vaccinated population, although it was lower than expected. The overall response to both vaccines, with protecting titers greater than or equal to 1/40 after vaccination was 65.2% for the Chile strain, 74.6% for the Philippines strain, and 15% for the URSS strain. No differences in the overall immune response were found between the groups vaccinated with whole and fragmented virus.