[Displacentar transfer of fluorescent antibodies from mothers to their newborns in a Wuchereria bancrofti endemic area in India (author's transl)].

The immunofluorescent antibody test against D. viteae applied to mothers blood and the umbilical cord blood of their newborns showed a very close association of the two endpoint titers in 50 pairs of examinations. In 37 cases the titer of the child was corresponding with the titer of its mother, in 10 cases the newborn's titer was one dilution below, in 2 cases two dilutions below the mother's titer. The titers of newborns of 15 mothers with titers greater than or equal to 1:80 were in 11 cases positive; 11 children of 15 mothers with a titer of less than or equal to 1:40 had a corresponding endpoint titer, in 4 it was below 1:40. There was a formal dependence between age of mothers and titer of mothers and their children. In 20 children reexamination after 6 months showed in no case an endpoint titer of 1:40 or above, regardless, whether previously mother or child had a high titer or not. These results indicate that in a W. bancrofti endemic area material antibodies against filariae, demonstrable in IFT against D. viteae are transferred diaplacentarly to the newborn, which are no more demonstrable after the sixth month of life.