Protection against scrub typhus infection engendered by the passive transfer of immune sera.

The passive transfer of convalescent sera did not protect the majority of mice against challenge with the homologous strain and was completely ineffective against challenge with strains unrelated by fluorescent antibody techniques. When the immune sera was incubated with the rickettsia in vitro and then inoculated into the mice a dramatic increase occurred in the number of surviving mice. The importance of these data in relation to published results with other species of rickettsia is discussed.