ABSTRACT
Thirty patients sera were examined and compared separately with a single pool of non bilharzial serum. 70% of the bilharzial serum showed better opsonization indicated by higher ingestion of typhoid bacilli by the polymorphs. 90% of the patients sera permitted more intracellular survival of bacteria, bacterial viability in presence of neutrophils in the reaction mixtures was high in 70% when the bilharzial serum was used. When only serum was incubated with the bacilli, there was 60% of the patient's serum permitted more bacterial survival than the control serum. The deficiency in the function of the bilharzial serum on the three defective indices was greatly restored by addition of 10% of the control serum. Further investigation of the deficient factors of the bilharzial serum was done. The addition of 10% of either the heat labile factors [HL] or the antibody [absorbable factors, ABS] was capable of restoring 1/3 of the defective function on any index however, the bilharzial serum was not capable in restoring the lower phagocytic index of the control serum. It might be concluded that bilharzial serum is rich for better opsonization for ingestion S. typhi but it is less effective than the control serum for bacterial killing. This deficiency was greatly restored by the addition of untreated normal serum and to a lesser extent by addition of either the heat labile factors or the absorbable factors of normal serum while the opposite was not. Perhaps the cell mediated immunity [CMI] is also deficient in the bilharzial subjects, this needs further investigation to perfectly address the cause of chronic carriage of typhoid bacilli among patients with urinary schistosomiasis