"Smallpox Protection Has Lapsed, Scientist Says"

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June 3, 2002

 

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

 

"Smallpox Protection Has Lapsed, Scientist Says"

Baltimore Sun (www.sunspot.net) (05/31/02) P. 12A; Bor, Jonathan

 

A study published recently in Maryland Medicine, the journal of the state medical society, says that adults who were inoculated against smallpox more than three decades ago are unlikely to still have any immunity against the virus.  The study, which was conducted by Dr. Michael Sauri, director of a private clinic in Rockville, Md., called Occupational Health Consultants, questions the common belief that a large number of people who were vaccinated against smallpox as children remain immune from the disease for up to half-a-century.  Current government policy would involve a limited strategy of "ring vaccination" should smallpox break out in the United States.  Ring vaccination involves vaccinating people who have come into contact with someone suffering from smallpox, as well as all people living within a certain geographical area around the sick person; however, Sauri says such a policy would probably not work if there is a real outbreak of the disease.  In his study, Sauri examined laboratory workers who had been working with the vaccinia virus--the agent used to create smallpox vaccine--in an attempt to create vaccines against HIV and other diseases, to see if they still exhibited an immune response to smallpox.  All of the workers had been vaccinated against the disease, but only 10 percent showed any immune response, indicating that the affects of the smallpox vaccine had worn off.

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