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Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, pigbel (enteritis necroticans) was the most common cause of death in children over the age of 1 year in hospitals in the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). There has been recent widespread perception that after the successful vaccination program in the 1980s the disease virtually disappeared. A new vaccine is now available, but disease burden information is conflicting: despite almost no pigbel being reported from major hospitals there have been many reports of the disease from outlying health centres. This study aimed to provide information on the disease burden of pigbel in PNG, so that appropriate vaccine policy decisions could be made. We conducted a 12-month prospective study of all cases of acute abdomen in children presenting to 38 health facilities, 29 health centres and 9 hospitals in the highlands. Children were eligible for inclusion if they were aged 1-12 years and had abdominal pain of less than 2 weeks' duration. A standardized case definition of pigbel was used to distinguish cases of acute abdominal pain very likely to be due to pigbel from cases very likely to be accounted for by other diagnoses (such as gastroenteritis, typhoid, dysentery, intussusception, urinary tract infection and others). A total of 119 cases of acute abdomen were reported from 17 of the 38 health facilities involved. Of these 119 cases 11 met the criteria for pigbel and a further 8 were probable cases. There were 4 deaths among the 119 children with acute abdomen: 2 from definite pigbel, 1 from probable pigbel and the other due to complications of measles. In 2002 pigbel was the cause of between 9% and 16% of presentations with acute abdominal pain in children in the PNG highlands. The overall disease burden of pigbel was relatively small (19 definite or probable cases and 3 deaths in 12 months). However, there was substantial geographical clustering of cases: more than 50% of the definite cases occurred in children living within three electorates on the Western Highlands-Enga provincial border, no more than 40 km from each other. This study will be useful in planning pigbel vaccine policy and future surveillance.

Developments in veterinary and medical bacterial vaccines are outlined. In the former case, economic considerations are paramount, and cruder, less purified products of proven efficacy continue to be employed. For human use, however, safety and absence of side effects are increasingly demanded. Various examples of human and veterinary vaccines are discussed, and interaction between the two fields is illustrated by reference to the pig-bel disease in New Guinea and the possible aetiology of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

A hypothesis suggested in this paper is that pigbel, or enteritis necroticans was a common disease in mediaeval Europe when human habitats, food hygiene, protein deficiency and periodic meat feasting formed the basics of village life as they do in many Third World cultures today. Based on the Papua New Guinea experience with pigbel, it is suggested that health authorities should look closely at the epidemiology of the acute surgical abdomen in such communities. Enteritis necroticans may be the important predisposing lesion to mid-gut volvulus, jejunal and ileal ileus and other forms of small bowel strangulation in communities where protein deprivation, poor food hygiene, epochal meat feasting and staple diets containing trypsin inhibitors co-exist. Such human habitats occur in Central South America, Western Pacific, Asian and South-East Asian cultures. Isolated outbreaks of necrotising enteritis have been reported from Uganda, Malaysia and Indonesia but as yet no systematic epidemiological studies of the prevalence of small bowel strangulations have been described in the surgical literature of Third World countries. Now that enteritis necroticans is preventable by vaccination such studies should be undertaken.