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History of Diphtheria Vaccine Development

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Book cover Corynebacterium diphtheriae and Related Toxigenic Species

Abstract

Diphtheria was a major cause of death among children until the beginning of the nineteenth century. The introduction in the 1920s of formaldehyde-detoxified diphtheria toxin for mass immunization, led to the control of diphtheria that is considered to be the first conquest of vaccination. Pioneering scientific discoveries were the isolation of Corynebacterium diphtheriae and of the secreted toxin responsible for disease, diphtheria toxin. The simultaneous progress on bacteriology and immunology brought to the development of detoxified toxins as safe and efficacious subunit vaccines that are still used in current vaccines. In this chapter we will review the main scientific breakthroughs that led to the development of the first vaccine against diphtheria and to the control of this disease.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Francesco Berti, Paolo Costantino, and Matthew Bottomley for useful discussions, and Catherine Mallia for editorial assistance.

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  1. Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Siena, Italy

    Rino Rappuoli & Enrico Malito

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  1. Rino Rappuoli
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  2. Enrico Malito
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Correspondence to Rino Rappuoli .

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  1. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen, Bayern, Germany

    Andreas Burkovski

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Rappuoli, R., Malito, E. (2014). History of Diphtheria Vaccine Development. In: Burkovski, A. (eds) Corynebacterium diphtheriae and Related Toxigenic Species. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7624-1_11

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