Associated Press
 

   ATLANTA -- Several metro Atlanta trauma centers will not have their health care workers vaccinated against smallpox Jan. 31, the starting day of Georgia's first wave of smallpox vaccinations, state health officials said Wednesday.
   Only ''three or four'' of the metro Atlanta area's seven trauma centers will have their health workers vaccinated, said Richard Quartarone, spokesman for the state Division of Public Health.
   He declined to say which hospitals would not have their workers vaccinated but three trauma centers said they would not participate in the first wave of vaccination -- Grady Memorial Hospital, DeKalb Medical Center and Gwinnett Medical Center.
   Officials from those hospitals said they will continue to be part of the state's planning and discussion process regarding smallpox shots.
   In December, the state submitted a plan to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention detailing the first wave of health care workers -- 300 to 400 people -- to be vaccinated against the smallpox virus in a voluntary program. The vaccination would start with the metro area's trauma centers, key hospitals in the state that likely would have to respond to a bioterrorist attack of smallpox.

Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Thursday, January 23, 2003.