Print This Page Email This Page See Most Sent

• Commentary: States Misspending Tobacco Settlements • Chat Mon.: Spiritual Guru Deepak Chopra • Lost Your Job Recently? E-Mail Us

Oct. 16

— By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than half a million doctors, nurses and other health care workers should be vaccinated against smallpox just in case of an attack, a committee of vaccination experts said on Tuesday.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the federal government on vaccination policy, broadened its recommendations for vaccinating those who may have to treat smallpox cases if there were a biological attack against the United States.

The plan, submitted for consideration by the Department of Health and Human Services and President Bush, calls for about 100 doctors, nurses and other essential staff at major hospitals to get smallpox vaccinations.

"There are roughly 5,000 hospitals (in the plan), so it adds up to about 510,000 people," said a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sponsors the committee.

"They include doctors and nurses in intensive care units, emergency room workers ... and subspecialists including infectious diseases doctors," he added.

Bush and the HHS are trying to come up with a plan that will protect the country in case smallpox is used in an attack, without endangering too many people. The idea is to make sure key people are protected against the virus so they can help any victims without endangering themselves.

Smallpox was eradicated from the population in 1978 and vaccination stopped in the United States in 1972. But officials believe the virus, which kills about a third of patients and causes oozing pustules that leave scars, may be developed into weapon form by extremist groups and some governments.

It is not considered to be the most likely threat against the country, but the disease is frightening and infectious and so it must be defended against.

The trouble is, the vaccine is based on 100-year-old technology and is crude and dangerous. It kills one to two people out of every million who receive it and causes severe, life-threatening disease such as encephalitis in 15 per million.

And people who do not get the vaccine can catch a virus from those who have just been immunized. The vaccine uses a live virus related to smallpox, which is usually harmless to people, but not always.

On Tuesday experts reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that between two to six unvaccinated people would contract the virus used in the vaccine for every 100,000 immunized.

In infants, people with eczema and those with suppressed immune systems, such as cancer patients and those with the AIDS virus, this can have serious effects. Blisters and a red, raw rash can cover all or parts of their bodies and it can cause blindness if it gets into the eyes.

Nonetheless, the committee did not recommend that health care workers who get the vaccine be put on leave. It let stand the existing advice for protecting the vaccination site on the arm, which stays blistered for up to two weeks.

The CDC and HHS are preparing recommendations for Bush that include vaccinating up to 10 million health care workers, police, ambulance crews and other "first responders" in case of an attack. They are considering offering the vaccine to the general public in case of an attack.

The immunization committee, meeting in Atlanta, is scheduled to make more decisions on smallpox and other vaccines on Thursday.

Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.