Last Updated: 2002-12-20 11:00:25 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By Ned Stafford

FRANKFURT (Reuters Health) - German federal and state governments have decided to share the costs of stockpiling enough smallpox vaccines to inoculate the entire population of more than 82 million people in the event of a smallpox bioterror attack.

Health and Social Ministry spokeswoman Annelies Ilona Klug said the decision to buy an additional 65 million doses of smallpox vaccine had come during a meeting Thursday between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and the prime ministers of German state governments. The doses will cost around 117 million euros, with the federal government paying half the cost and the states picking up the rest of the tab.

The German government currently has around 24 million doses of smallpox vaccine stockpiled, plus is expecting shipments of around 11 million doses early next year that were ordered earlier this autumn. When the government announced the 11-million-dose order in October, some opposition politicians complained that the government was not stockpiling enough vaccine for the whole population.

On Friday, spokeswoman Klug called the decision to buy an additional 65 million doses a "precaution," emphasizing that it was not a response to a specific bioterror threat.

She said the German government currently has no plans to begin vaccinating any citizens and that the vaccinations would be held in storage and used only in case of a bioattack. She added such a strategy is the one recommended by most experts.

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