Anyone who has ever had a vaccine no doubt wishes that they provided lifelong immunity -- for no one likes either injections or the sometimes painful reaction that the immune system responds with. But unfortunately vaccines do not convey life-time. One of the medical problems in treating individuals is that while it is known that immunity (from either vaccination or the disease itself) does wane over time the degree of lasting immunity varies greatly from individual to individual. However, the technique of real-time PCR allows researcher and medical professionals to determine the degree of immunity that an individual possesses at that moment. And while this is important in diseases such as tetanus (the disease that is being examined in this paper) it is vital in diseases such as diphtheria. Information about immunity that is gathered through real-time PCR of tetanus immunity can be applied to other diseases as well.
