The Role of Antibody in Recovery from Infection with Vaccinia Virus

Vaccinia infection in guinea pigs has been employed to study factors which may be responsible for recovery from a primary virus infection. Irradiated animals, in which no detectable neutralizing antibody could be demonstrated, recovered from vaccinia infection as rapidly as nonirradiated animals, suggesting that production of neutralizing antibody was not necessary for recovery. Neither delayed hypersensitivity nor interferon were excluded as factors in recovery, and their relative importance remains undertermined.