Vaccinia-immune globulin (VIG) only recently has become available for the treatment of complications of smallpox vaccination. This paper will review the problem of ocular vaccinia and will present our results in the treatment of 6 cases with vacciniaimmune globulin.
Ocular vaccinia is most likely to occur in patients who have not had previous successful vaccinations and in those previously vaccinated who do not have adequate antibody levels against the viruses of vaccinia and variola. The disease can result from autoinoculation when the patient touches his own active vaccination "take" and then his own eye. This form of inoculation is common in infants and small children. Eye inoculation may also result when a nonimmune person touches someone with an active primary take and transmits the virus on his fingers to his eye. Similarly, the condition may occur in people working with the vaccine.
Vaccination usually produces a lasting but not necessarily