Dilated cardiomyopathy, perhaps chronic postviral fatigue syndrome as well as juvenile diabetes could be triggered by enteroviral infections. The frequency of sudden death after myocarditis and its relationship to enteroviral infections is disputed. Neonatal enteroviral disease is rare, but can be severe. It is also possible that enteroviruses pose a threat to immunocompromised patients, like bone marrow transplant recipients. Consequently, the emergence of chronic enteroviral diseases as a concept, prompted our attempts to produce an enteroviral vaccine. 1. Live attenuated enterovirus strains were previously in some cases shown to be suitable as vaccine candidates. We obtained neutralizing antibody titres ranging from 40-2560 against Coxsackie B3 virus (RD strain). Animals were protected to 90% against challenge infection. 2. Inactivated whole vaccine. We used beta-propiolactone to inactive Coxsackie B3 virus. 74% of the animals survived if the vaccine was prepared with Quil A matrix as adjuvant. The neutralisation antibody titres varied from < 5 to 320. By comparison aluminium hydroxide (p = 0.06) and Freund's adjuvant were inferior (p < 0.01). 3. Subunit vaccines. We have previously used the ISCOM (immunostimulatory complex) technology to produce a Coxsackie B3 subunit vaccine. High levels of neutralizing antibodies were obtained (512)-comparable to natural infection. All animals survived challenge infection after two booster doses with 16 nanogram of the ISCOM preparation. Limiting for this technique was the availability to include sufficient amount of antigenic protein material. In addition to neutralizing antibodies a cellular response might be obtainable. In conclusion we have shown that vaccine can be made against Coxsackie B3 virus with good protective effect and significant neutralisation antibody titre.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)