News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – In a brief statement today, President George W. Bush announced that the government will begin giving smallpox shots to military and other government personnel in high-risk areas and to willing front-line healthcare workers.

(CIDRAP News) – The 7,000-member Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has urged President Bush not to make smallpox vaccine available to the public for now, on grounds that serious reactions to it could undermine public confidence in the shots and in other immunizations as well.

(CIDRAP News) – Thirty-eight of 62 US states, territories, and major urban areas have filed "pre-event" smallpox vaccination plans with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as of today. The plans for vaccinating key public health and healthcare personnel were due to the CDC yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – As the likelihood of a large-scale smallpox vaccination program grows, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seeking to expand the government's limited supply of vaccinia immune globulin (VIG), the mainstay of treatment for severe reactions to the vaccine.

(CIDRAP News) – In passing a bill to create a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) this week, Congress left the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in charge of most bioterrorism preparedness and civilian biodefense research programs—to the relief of medical research and public health groups.

(CIDRAP News) – Now that the federal government has some licensed smallpox vaccine in its stockpile, a presidential announcement on vaccination recommendations may be coming very soon, bioterrorism expert Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, predicted last week.

"I believe that in the next days you'll be hearing from the president about this vaccine," Osterholm told healthcare workers at a meeting in Minneapolis.

(CIDRAP News) – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has updated the licensing for the government's decades-old stockpile of Dryvax smallpox vaccine by approving a new vaccine kit that includes a new diluent and bifurcated needles, according to federal officials.

(CIDRAP News) – The world's last naturally acquired case of smallpox occurred almost exactly 25 years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes in today's issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The smallpox case occurred in the Merca District of Somalia on Oct 26, 1977, the CDC says. Less than 3 years later, in May 1980, the World Health Organization declared the world free of naturally occurring smallpox.

(CIDRAP News) – The federal government's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) amended its June 2002 recommendations on smallpox vaccinations for healthcare workers this week in an effort to ensure that the healthcare system will have enough immunized people to deal with a smallpox outbreak.

(CIDRAP News) – The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently sent a recommendation on smallpox vaccination policy to President Bush, but HHS officials still are not confirming reports that it calls for vaccinating as many as 500,000 healthcare workers.

"I can't confirm anything other than that the recommendation went to the White House," Bill Pierce, an HHS spokesman in Washington, DC, told CIDRAP News today.