Inactivated smallpox vaccine. A comparison of inactivation methods

Vaccines were prepared from a single pool of high-titred vaccinia virus and inactivated by six methods, namely heat, formalin, hydroxylamine, beta-propiolactone, ultraviolet irradiation, and visible light and methylene blue. Large doses of the vaccines were required to protect mice against intracerebral challenge. Differences in protection were not attributable to the method of their inactivation. The vaccines also induced similar degrees of skin immunity in rabbits which showed no severe dermal reactions when challenged with either homologous killed vaccine or live virus. The virus-neutralizing, haemagglutinin-inhibiting and complement fixing antibody responses to the vaccines differed; heat-inactivation preserved these antigens least well and beta-propiolactone apparently the best. In both rabbits and mice there was little association between the different antibody responses to each vaccine or between the degrees of antibody response and the protection they induced. The relation of these findings to pox-virus immunity and the use of inactivated smallpox vaccine in man is discussed.