Old smallpox shots may still work

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Old smallpox shots may still work

Tests show people vaccinated decades ago still protected


Aug. 28 — The need to vaccinate all Americans against smallpox may be less pressing than people thought, researchers said on Wednesday.


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	Smallpox's rise and fall

	Time line of a scourge

	1754-1767 British forces in North America distribute tainted blankets to "disaffected tribes," marking first use of smallpox as an intentional weapon.
	1796 Edward Jenner demonstrates that cowpox inoculation can guard against smallpox.
	1967 World Health Organization launches global vaccination campaign against smallpox.
	1971 Smallpox's eradication leads U.S. to discontinue routine vaccination.
	1977 Last naturally occurring case of smallpox reported in Somalia.
	1980 WHO certifies that the world is free of naturally occurring smallpox. Soviets begin to develop smallpox as a bioweapon.
	1982 Vaccine production is discontinued in the United States.
	1990 U.S. military discontinues routine vaccinations.
	Today Smallpox vaccinations are generally limited to selected lab workers and military personnel.




Source: JAMA Printable version

AMID FEARS the United States is vulnerable to a bioterror attack involving smallpox, tests on people vaccinated more than 35 years ago show that many of them still carry a significant amount of immunity to the dreaded disease.
The finding, published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine, appears to go against the conventional wisdom that smallpox inoculations are only effective for seven to 10 years.
Jeffrey Frelinger, one of two researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who described their finding in a letter to the journal, said resistance to the disease among people vaccinated decades ago is waning but not rapidly.
“We would think that people even 35 years later would still have substantial resistance to smallpox infection,” said Frelinger, an expert in immunity.
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, but the United States is pushing to have all citizens vaccinated or revaccinated out of a fear the virus — which can kill a third of the people it infects — could be used in a biological attack.

Routine vaccinations against smallpox in the United States stopped in the 1970s, and Washington is working to “stretch out” existing vaccine supplies by diluting them and has ordered millions of new doses.
Frelinger said if there is a shortage, his research suggests it would be more prudent to first inoculate previously unvaccinated individuals instead of those who probably have some lingering immunity.

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