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'No Medications Have Proven Effective' to Treat Smallpox
John Rossomando for CNSnews.com
Friday, Oct.
19, 2001
The nation faces a
possible threat from a disease that was declared eradicated by the World
Health Organization (WHO) in 1980. Bioterrorism experts at the Heritage
Foundation fear that smallpox presents a greater threat to the general
population than anthrax.
Heritage Foundation Foreign and Defense
Policy Analyst Michael Scardaville said smallpox presents a dilemma for the
government planners because of its highly contagious nature along with the
delay between initial infection and the appearance of the first symptoms of
the disease.
According to Scardaville, smallpox
symptoms take 5-7 days to develop, consequently "people could [spread]
it before anyone knows that there has been an attack."
According to the Virginia Department of
Health's "Smallpox Fact Sheet," smallpox is spread by close
contact with the mucus of an infected individual or contact with objects
contaminated by an ill individual.
The fact sheet states that the initial
symptoms of the disease are chills, a high fever around 106 degrees, joint
and muscle aches (especially backaches), nausea and vomiting.
A rash will appear on the skin several
days after the first symptoms of the disease appear. It is soon followed by
the appearance of ulcerating lesions covering all parts of the body, which
contaminate bodily fluids with the virus.
Eventually the lesions will scab and
then the contaminated scabs will fall off, leaving scars behind. The virus
can lead to death if it attacks the eyes, lungs, heart, throat or liver,
according to the fact sheet.
"At this time, no medications have
proven effective for treating smallpox. Patients with this disease would be
given supportive therapy, including treatment to keep the patient as
comfortable as possible by keeping the skin clean, trying to control the
itching, relieving the pain and other symptoms as much as possible,"
the fact sheet said.
The Virginia Department of Health also
reports that the only known samples of the smallpox virus are at the
Centers for Disease Control facility in Atlanta, Ga., and at the Institute
for Viral Preparations in Koltsovo, Russia. The health department said the
existence of other smallpox stockpiles could not be confirmed.
Smallpox Virus Falling in the Wrong
Hands
The Heritage Foundation report also
reaffirms the difficulty of obtaining the smallpox virus.
"It is more difficult to obtain
smallpox than anthrax," Scardaville said. "The only legal
stockpiles are at the CDC and a laboratory in Russia, but Russia had an
extensive biological weapons program during the Cold War."
"They were supposed to have
developed a weaponized version of smallpox," he said.
Scardaville speculates that some Russian
scientists who worked on the Soviet bioweapons may have sold their services
to the highest bidder, and that the security of the Russian smallpox
samples may have been compromised.
"The security at the Russian plants
is far from excellent, and it is not inconceivable that some scientists or
[Russian] mafia member ... could have put a small amount of the culture
into their pocket and walked out, [then] sold it to someone,"
Scardaville said.
"I am not going to make it sound
like [smallpox] is easy to get, but I am not going to make it
inconceivable."
Smallpox Vaccine
Smallpox remains a bioterror threat,
despite the fact that a vaccine has existed for the disease since
Englishman Edward Jenner's discovery in 1796.
The vaccine has been unavailable to
health providers and the general public, however, since 1983, according the
Virginia Department of Health website, which also states that smallpox
vaccinations have not been routine since 1972.
"At the present time, smallpox
vaccine is supplied only to certain laboratory workers who are at risk of
infection with smallpox-like viruses because of their occupation. The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration does not allow the release of smallpox vaccine
to any other person for any reason," the Virginia Department of Health
report stated.
The CDC maintains a small stockpile (14
million doses of smallpox vaccine) for emergency use, according to the
Heritage Foundation.
"Anyone in this country under 30
years hasn't been immunized," Scardaville said. "A government
official recently said that they could water it down and still retain the
effectiveness; however, we don't have enough for the entire country."
"It's [an] old stockpile, it's not
stuff that was made recently," he said. "This was made back in
the '70s, so it's probably effective, but who knows?"
Scardaville estimates that it would take
up to a year to resume production and amass enough vaccine for the entire
population.
According to Scardaville, The Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) last summer brought together
different government officials, including Gov. Frank Keating, R-Okla., to
simulate a smallpox attack in Oklahoma City. The simulation revealed a
total inability of government officials to effectively manage a smallpox
epidemic, Scardaville said.
"They brought together senior
people to play the president, the national security advisor, and such
people that could conceivably have those jobs," he said. "Even
these senior people with experience in government ... weren't able to
prevent 1 million people from dying all over the country, [and] three
million people from becoming infected, and a virtual collapse of the civil
society in Oklahoma and the surrounding area."
Would Vaccine Cause More Harm?
Some experts also believe the smallpox
vaccine has severe health risks.
"The smallpox vaccine is the most
reactive [disease causing] vaccine that we have ever used," said
Barbara Loe Fisher, spokeswoman for the National Vaccine Information
Center. "I do know that brain complications occurred within one to six
weeks of the original smallpox vaccination, most frequently after the first
dose, and that the reaction rate was between 1 in 159 and 1 in every 6,500
vaccinated persons."
According to Fisher, vaccination-related
brain complications were most common in children under 2 years of age, and
50 percent of those children who developed the complications died from
them. She also said 35 percent of adults who developed brain complications
from the smallpox vaccine also died.
Fisher asserted that "those in
fragile health, immune compromised, are at a higher risk," of
complications from the vaccine, but individuals who are genetically
predisposed against experiencing complications are at a lesser risk for
developing disease.
"What we have to do in this crisis
situation ... is to keep a perspective and a balance," Fisher said.
"In any mass vaccination campaign, you are going to have casualties,
and the number of casualties are going to determine if you are screening
out" people likely to develop adverse reactions to the vaccine.
Reprinted with permission of CNSNews.com
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