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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/19/international/europe/19POX.html

W.H.O. Delays End of Smallpox Virus

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ENEVA, May 18 — The World Health Organization agreed today to delay the planned destruction of the world's remaining stocks of the deadly smallpox virus to allow more time to develop new vaccines and treatments.

The W.H.O., a United Nations agency, had set the end of 2002 as the deadline for eliminating the stocks. But the anthrax attacks last fall in the United States renewed fears that militants or so-called rogue states could use the germs as a weapon.

Smallpox was once one of the world's most feared diseases, killing about one-third of its victims. Its official eradication in 1977 was considered a major success.

Health officials had planned to stamp out any possibility of the disease's recurrence by destroying the last stocks of the variola virus, which are stored in the United States and Russia. But there was concern that some might have fallen into the wrong hands and that available vaccines could not be given to people with weakened immune systems.

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