A new vaccine for undulant fever, which is expected to largely eliminate the disease in Israel, has been described here by its developer, Dr. Aryeh L. Olitzki, professor of bacteriology and head of the bacteriology department of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem.
Dr. Olitzki described his discovery at a luncheon given by the Mount Zion Hospital and Medical Center. He is ending a six months research project at the University of California financed by the U. S. Public Health Service.
Dr. Olitzki said he found that some strains of the undulant fever vaccine can become dependent on streptomycin, a drug used to fight infections. He said he found that in such cases, the drug becomes a nutrient to such strains which cannot reproduce without it, Using this principle, he developed the new vaccine which has been tested on 100 patients in Israel with a finding of 96 per cent effectiveness in protection.
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