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June 17, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Study: Test Caused Smallpox Outbreak"

Associated Press (www.ap.org) (06/15/02); Woodward, Calvin

On Saturday, U.S. researcher Alan Zelicoff reported that an outbreak of smallpox that killed three people and infected seven others in 1971 appeared to have been caused by smallpox that was tested as a bioweapon and carried through the air.  Zelicoff, of Sandia National Labs, studied long-secret Soviet documents and interviewed survivors of the outbreak that took place on a port on the Aral Sea, in the former Kazakh Republic, and which resulted in the emergency vaccination of over 50,000 people. According to a Soviet report at the time of the outbreak, the first person infected was a woman on a research ship that sailed within 10 miles of an island where smallpox was being tested as a weapon; however, the woman told Zelicoff that she did not leave the boat during the period at issue.  Reactions to Zelicoff's report were mixed, with D.A. Henderson--who advises the U.S. government on bioterrorism and led the smallpox-eradication effort over 20 years ago--calling it alarmist and nothing new.

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