Immunological basis for immunization

Overview

Diphtheria is a bacterial disease in which most of the clinical manifestations result from the action of an extracellular protein, exotoxin, produced by  Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a gram-positive bacterium whose genomic sequence was recently characterized (Cerdeno-Tarraga et al., 2003). Human cases or carriers are the reservoir for this infection.