AUGUSTA — Smallpox vaccinations are expected to begin in Maine in February with inoculations of teams of medical professionals who would be the first to respond to any suspected outbreak of the deadly disease. The vaccinations are part of a national preparedness plan should terrorists gain access to the smallpox virus and release it against civilians.

The first round of vaccinations will involve 100 volunteers who are members of groups that would likely respond to any smallpox outbreak, said Dr. Stephen Sears, chief medical officer for MaineGeneral Hospitals.

Once those people are inoculated, the state plans to vaccinate another 3,000 medical professionals beginning in March. Those people will be nurses, doctors and others who will make up health care response teams at each of Maine's hospitals.

It is unclear how many people will be inoculated after that, but likely recipients of future rounds include police officers, firefighters and additional health care workers, officials said. Vaccinations for the general public probably won't be available for more than a year.

Vaccinations stopped in the United States in 1972, and the last reported smallpox case transmitted between humans was in 1977. The disease was declared "dead" in 1980.

"There's a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about smallpox," Sears said. "Some people think it's still around. It isn't. Some people think there are treatments for it. There aren't."

The only known stockpiles of smallpox virus remaining in the world are at laboratories in the United States and Russia, but there are fears that terrorists could somehow acquire the virus, if they have not already.

Dr. Anthony Tomassoni, medical director for the state's newly created Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, said no smallpox vaccine is stockpiled in Maine.

"All the vaccine is federally owned, so when it comes to us, it will be released to us through the Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention in Atlanta)," Tomassoni said.

Americans stopped receiving the smallpox vaccination 30 years ago because of the risks associated with them. In rare cases, the vaccination can cause death.

Sears said the fears of those risks must be weighed against the fears of a smallpox terrorist attack in deciding whether citizens should be vaccinated.

"That's really the balance here," Sears said. "Nobody really knows what the risk of smallpox exposure is, because that's a political risk; but we do know the side effects of the vaccine."

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