News & Perspective

Editor's note: This story was revised Feb 11 to include some additional information provided by the Department of Defense.

(CIDRAP News) – After vaccinating more than a million personnel with the old-fashioned type of smallpox vaccine grown on the skin of calves, the US military is about to switch to a second-generation vaccine that's grown in laboratory cell cultures.

(CIDRAP News) – A second-generation smallpox vaccine made by the British biotechnology company Acambis plc and stockpiled by the US government as protection against bioterrorist attacks has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

(CIDRAP News) – The US government has issued about $60 million in contracts to spur development of a vaccine against tularemia, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced recently.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division of NIH, has issued two 5-year contracts for vaccine work, the agency said earlier this month. The agency also awarded $87 million in grants to build four biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) labs.

(CIDRAP News) – It is 13 days since the emergence of a hypothetical smallpox epidemic caused by the release of virus in three US shopping malls. Some 16,000 cases have been reported, 1,000 people have died, and the nation is running out of vaccine. Hospitals are overflowing, and federal and state officials are at odds over how to contain the epidemic.