Further observations on immunization of sheep against Schistosoma mansoni and S. bovis using irradiation-attenuated schistosomula of homologous and heterologous species.

: This paper describes further characteristics of the immunization of sheep against schistosomes using live, irradiation schistosomula. Sheep immunized with a non-virulent strain of Schistosoma mattheei were protected against a more virulent strain of the same species for over a year. As there was no evidence that the irradiated parasites were able to persist this long, it was concluded that the vaccine had induced a sterile resistance. Heterologous vaccination, using irradiated S. mattheei schistosomula to immunize against S. bovis or irradiated S. mansoni schistosomula to immunize against S. mattheei, failed to induce any protection.