title: Seroprevalence study of anti diphtheria antibodies in two age-groups of Romanian adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Diphtheria represents a serious infectious disease with high epidemic potential. It is a vaccine preventable disease (a minimum vaccine coverage of 95% for children of 1 year and 90% in adults could prevent the disease). Diphtheria vaccination is included in the National Immunization Program (NIP). Complete vaccination for children consists in DTaP (diphtheria toxoid, tetanus toxoid and acellular pertussis vaccine) vaccine administration from the age of 2 months until 4 years and dT vaccine (tetanus toxoid and a reduced dose of diphtheria toxoid) at 14 years old. The aim of this paper was to highlight the protection against diphtheria of an age segment of the Romanian adult population (20 to 39 years old) using a seroprevalence study.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Romanian subjects were selected from two age groups: 20-29 years (n = 219) and 30-39 years (n = 229), representative for all counties of Romania. The commercial kit Anti-Diphtheria Toxoid ELISA (IgG) (EUROIMMUN) was used to detect the antibodies of IgG class against diphtheria toxoid in the sera obtained from our subjects.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We detected a 56.6% rate of positive sera (> 0.1 IU/ml--protection level) for the 20-29 age group and 31.7% positivity for the 30-39 age group. These data show a low protection level against diphtheria of the Romanian adult population, which decreases with age. The serologic data on preventable vaccine diseases are useful in order to evaluate the success of the immunization programs.
authors.forename: Cristiana Cerasella
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Dragomirescu
authors.forename: Ileana-Luminiţa
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Coldea
authors.forename: Anamaria
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ilie
authors.forename: Aurora
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stănescu
authors.forename: Vasilica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ungureanu
authors.forename: Mircea Ioan
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Popa
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial / Q000097:blood*; D003353:Corynebacterium diphtheriae / Q000276:immunology*; D004165:Diphtheria / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D012383:Romania / Q000453:epidemiology; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000907:Antibodies, Bacterial