Human Cytomegalovirus Immunization Prospects

Successful immunization to prevent an infectious disease is most easily accomplished when certain conditions are met: the infection and its disease are readily detected and identified, and they occur in close temporal association; the offending virus has a single antigenic type, its pathogenic potential is limited to a single disease, and the virus does not change in nature; a person, once infected, acquires protective antibody that confers lifelong immunity so that the disease never recurs in that person; the protective antibody or immune factor and its locus of secretion and action are easily detected and identified; and the virus can . . .