Persistence of Yellow Fever vaccine-induced antibodies after cord blood stem cell transplant.

We report the case of a cord blood haematopoietic stem cell transplant recipient who was vaccinated for Yellow Fever (YF) 7 days before initiating chemotherapy and had persistent YF antibodies more than 3 years after vaccination. Since the stem cell donor was never exposed to wild YF or to the YF vaccine, and our patient was not exposed to YF or revaccinated, this finding strongly suggests the persistence of recipient immunity. We briefly discuss potential consequences of incomplete elimination of recipient's leukocytes following existing haematopoietic cancer treatments.