Salivary specific Ab testing to assess protection against tetanus
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Salivary specific-antibody testing to assess protection against tetanus in low-middle income countries
IRAS ID
244422
Contact name
Alex Richter
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 9 months, 28 days
Research summary
Tetanus is a bacteria that persists worldwide in soil and animal intestines. Tetanus infection can be fatal but is preventable by vaccination and cases are rare in the UK. In countries where vaccine coverage is suboptimal, deaths from tetanus, especially in the very young remains a public health problem.
Measuring tetanus antibodies is an important strategy for ensuring protective antibodies are achieved with vaccination or establishing whether an individual has or has not been vaccinated. An example of where this would be important is identifying women who are not protected against tetanus, when they are pregnant, so they can be vaccinated and the immune response generated can be passed to the baby in the womb to protect them in the first months of life when they are most at risk.
However, taking blood from people requires resources and expertise and an alternative method for measuring tetanus antibodies would facilitate this. We have found that tetanus antibodies can be measured in saliva (spit). What we don’t know is whether these antibodies mirror established protective levels in the serum and so can be used as an alternative sampling method.
This study aims to determine whether antibodies in the saliva can be used as a biomarker of protection against tetanus. If they can be used, can saliva be used to develop a rapid portable point of care test using an established method called a lateral flow assay (a good example of this is a pregnancy test).
REC name
Yorkshire & The Humber - Sheffield Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/YH/0247
Date of REC Opinion
12 Jul 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion