[Differences in the quality of vaccinia viruses with normal and abnormal post-vaccination course (with neurological complications) (author's transl)].

Conventional vaccinia strains were cultured at different temperatures, because it is known that vaccinia viruses which are human pathogens grow even at higher temperatures (41 degrees C). Neither the vaccination strains nor the vaccinia viruses which were isolated from vaccination vesicles after normal (n equals 7) or abnormal primary vaccinations (n equals 2) multiplied at higher incubation temperatures; Vaccinia viruses isolated from CSF of four patients with neurological complications behaved differently. Uninhibited growth at 41 degrees C (with high infection titres) suggest that the viruses isolated from CSF were vaccinia variants with abnormal characteristics. Accordingly, these variants morphologically formed plaques in Vero-cell cultures which were two to three times larger than those of vaccinia viruses obtained from CSF of primary vaccinated cases after only moderately severe general reactions, and which on temperature test responded like the viruses used in the original vaccination.