Smallpox Vaccine

[Guest guest]

OCTOBER 12, 13:46 EDT

Study Will Try Smaller Vaccine Dose By STEPHEN MANNING Associated Press Writer

BETHESDA, Md. — Researchers are beginning a large new study to see if they can dilute the nation's small stockpile of smallpox vaccine to make it stretch farther in case of a bioterrorist attack.

Fresh batches of vaccine are on order, but experts hope that adding more liquid to the existing supply will be a temporary solution at least until those begin to arrive next summer.

The need for protection against the disease, which has been eradicated in its natural form, has become more pressing since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. There is no treatment for smallpox, and routine vaccinations ceased in the United States in 1972 because it was no longer considered a threat. Most people vaccinated before then have lost their resistance to the virus.

Some experts fear that smallpox manufactured by the Soviet Union in the 1980s for biowarfare may have been obtained by rogue nations and could be used in bioterrorist attacks.

The government has 15.4 million doses of smallpox vaccine stockpiled at secret warehouses around the country. Researchers at four institutions will test whether the vaccine can be diluted to one-fifth and one-tenth of their standard dosage and still prevent infection.

``It's a very quick way to markedly expand the amount of vaccine that we already have, which on face value in the undiluted form would not be a lot. It's prudent to be prepared,'' said Dr. S. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which is funding the experiment.

If the approach works, Fauci said the diluted vaccine could be ready by the end of this year.

However, diluting the vaccine is not meant to be an alternative to the new doses in production, said Dr. Sharon Frey, the lead researcher on the smallpox study at St. Louis University. ``This is a stopgap measure to make more doses available until that new vaccine is developed.''

Over a 2 1/2 -month period beginning next month, researchers at St. Louis, the University of land, the University of Rochester and Baylor College of Medicine will study 684 adults under the age of 32 who have never been vaccinated for smallpox. They will see if the diluted vaccines trigger production of protective antibodies and create a telltale scab.

In a pilot study last year on 20 people, researchers used vaccines diluted by 10 times and by 100 times. The one-tenth doses produced a significant number of positive results, while the doses that were 100 times weaker had little effect.

Anything that would increase the country's limited stockpile is an improvement, said Dr. Neal Halsey, who studies vaccines at the s Hopkins University.

``I am sure there is nowhere near enough smallpox vaccine to provide it to everyone in the country and even those who would be exposed in a large incident,'' he said.

Smallpox is a viral disease that causes high fevers, rashes and sores that cover the whole body. The disease is fatal in about a third of all cases.

While inhaled anthrax is much more lethal, killing roughly 90 percent of all patients, it isn't contagious. Smallpox released in a bioterror attack, however, could spread rapidly throughout a population and infect thousands because it is passed through the air.

[Guest guest]

Louise,

Maybe they should have keep manufacturing the vaccine to have on hand for

bio-terrorism, and not give it unless needed. I can¹t see risking side

effects by continuing immunizing against a disease that has been eradicated,

but we should have kept a supply of the vaccine. Our country has been woken

up to the facts that we are target for all kinds of unthinkable acts. We

just have to pray that the heightened security averts any terrorism.

a

> I am one of the believer's that we should have never discontinued our smallpox

> immunization program as a nation. We knew the threat of bio-terrorism way back

> when the program was eliminated.The stockpiles of the virus were frozen but

> were never destroyed. Now we have an entire nation who is not resistant to the

> disease because even if you were immunized as a child (I am 50 year's old).

> The immunity has long worn off. So we have Saddam and other's who have been

> busily making the stuff as a terror weapon and plan to use it. We are too

> trusting as a nation. We believe that no other nation wants to hurt or kill

> our citizens. September 11th was the wake up call and still we do not want to

> believe that this is so. September 11th was only the beginning. The rogue

> nation's are still plotting and planning. ly I would rather die in a

> nuclear blast than die in a smallpox epidemic. At least with a nuclear blast

> of today's intensity you die fast.

> Louise

>