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July 25, 2003

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

“Grant Will Fund Research on Bioterror Vaccine”

Roanoke Times (VA) (www.roanoke.com) (07/24/03) P. NRV1; Miller, Kevin

Thomas Inzana, a Virginia Tech veterinary researcher and bacteriologist for the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, has received a more than $1 million grant from the U.S. Army to develop a vaccine that prevents tularemia, a rare infection more commonly known as rabbit fever. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have decided that tularemia is a Category A agent, putting the disease alongside anthrax, plague, and smallpox, and while it can be treated with antibiotics, that treatment becomes more difficult later in the disease’s development, when the infection involves the respiratory system.  The disease is found most often in rodents and hares, but it also infects about 200 Americans a year; however, if “weaponized,” the agent could become a serious threat to the public because “it’s easy to obtain, it only takes 10 organisms to cause infection in humans, it’s very hardy and could be spread by aerosols,” explains Inzana.  By comparison, 10,000 spores of anthrax are required to cause infection in humans, while tularemia, once contracted, can be spread by ticks and biting flies or by handling animals that were killed by the disease.