Smallpox, a disease that’s been clinically unseen as it was eradicated in 1980 and there are only 2 stocks of the disease left in the world! Those two stocks are in Moscow and at the CDC in Atlanta. Due to the time since the last instance of smallpox, the article states that the majority of the population may have suppressed immunity to smallpox. However, the pox viruses are cross reactive and can be protective against one another so people that have had the vaccinia vaccine have antibodies against the pox viruses. Smallpox, a class A bioterrorism agent, is easily transmissible and can infect a large portion of the population and incites fear in all people due to the severity of the disease. This is relevant to the world right now as we have to consider whether it is time to get rid of the smallpox stocks is now -- the recent chemical attack in Salisbury has made people nervous about any kind of stockpiling of dangerous diseases that could be weaponized to hurt a majority of the population. With an increasing population of immunosuppressed people, the protection and safety plans for a bioterrorism attack with smallpox must be re-evaluated as it doesn’t consider this data. In the event of a smallpox attack, officials say that the non-licensed vaccines for immunosuppressed populations would be granted emergency approval for use. Implications for this published research could be potentially dangerous as it estimates the infectious and lethal impacts of releasing the smallpox virus on NYC and Sydney. This article brings to the forefront the question - isn’t it time to get rid of the smallpox stocks?
-Meley
0 Komentar