County workers conduct smallpox training

By Lanie Lippincott Peterson
912.652.0331
laniep@savannahnow.com

At least 100 Chatham and Effingham county health workers took part in a mock vaccination clinic designed to teach them how to respond to a possible smallpox epidemic.

The idea was to prepare health workers to deal with the threat of bioterrorism or major illness such as an influenza epidemic, said district immunization coordinator Susan Malone, who led the exercise.

Smallpox was considered eradicated worldwide by about 1980 but Russian stockpiles of the variola virus which causes smallpox are not completely accounted for, officials from the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Since January, Georgia health departments have conducted mock or real vaccination clinics but this was Savannah's first training exercise. The vaccine can cause side effects including fever, even possibly heart attack and death. Because of concerns about the vaccine, no one on Wednesday received it, health officials said.