Vaccination Status of Patients in an Outbreak of Acute Poliomyelitis

Considerable interest has been aroused in the degree of protection afforded by partial or complete poliomyelitis vaccination to persons who became infected with the virus of poliomyelitis. Related to this is the probability that commercially prepared poliomyelitis vaccine is of inconstant potency and therefore produces inconstant degrees of protection. A high incidence of acute poliomyelitis occurred in the middle Tennessee area during the summer of 1959 and made possible a study of the effects of vaccination with killed virus vaccine on the characteristics of the disease. An effort was made to relate vaccination status to the degree of paralysis. Patient Material Sixty-nine patients were seen during the acute phase of the disease and are included in this study. The clinical diagnosis was based on the characteristic historical, physical, and laboratory findings of acute poliomyelitis. For each patient, the diagnosis was confirmed by virus isolation and/or serological data. Patients who were