Medicine: Virus Cornered

• Share

The virus of German measles, or rubella, has been isolated and cultivated in test tubes, Government researchers at the National Institutes of Health announced last week. This long awaited discovery will make it possible to protect unborn babies against the malforming effects that the virus often produces when the mother becomes infected during the first three months of pregnancy.

In children and in males of any age, German measles is a trivial disease—totally different from ordinary measles (rubeola). The elusive virus now isolated cannot be generally used as a readymade vaccine because of the danger that children might transmit the infection to pregnant women. So scientists are trying to make it safe, by killing the virus (as in Salk polio shots) or weakening it (as in Sabin oral vaccine).