Introduction: In the course of their clinical training medical students are exposed to the danger of infection. The target of this study was, therefore, to investigate the immunity of 245 medical students in their first clinical semester to profession-specific diseases. Methods: To this end, laboratory tests for hepatitis B virus [HBV], hepatitis C virus [HCV], HIV, varicella zoster virus [VZV], polio viruses type 1, 2 and 3 as well as anamnestic studies — based on a standardized questionnaire — of HBV, HCV, HIV, VZV, polio, measles, mumps, German measles, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis were performed. Results: The results showed that 45.3 % of the students had insufficient hepatitis B protection provided by vaccination, 0.4 % of the students had an HCV infection whereas no HIV infection was found. 94.7 % of the students had sufficient immunity against VZV whereas 3.3 % had only low-level-immunity. For polio type 1 (94.3 %) and type 2 (93.1 %) safe immunity was demonstrated serologically, but the rate of type 3 immunity (60.0 %) was significantly lower. The anamnestic data demonstrated insufficient protection provided by vaccination in 63.3 % of the students against measles, in 68.1 % against mumps and 62.4 % against German measles. For tetanus and diphtheria these values were 25.3 % and 33.4 %. The ignorance of the status of protection provided by vaccination was highest for pertussis at 44.3 % and lowest for tetanus at 6.1 %. Discussion: The significant gaps in immunity need to be closed prior to the first contact with patients.
