Smallpox

(CIDRAP News) – Two vaccine companies have received contracts estimated at about $200 million to produce a modified smallpox vaccine for the US government.

Acambis, based in Cambridge, UK, and Cambridge, Mass., and Denmark's Bavarian Nordic both won contracts on Sep 30 to continue research on a smallpox vaccine made with a modified version of the currently used live vaccinia (Dryvax) vaccine, news services reported.

(CIDRAP News) – A test of smallpox vaccine made by Aventis Pasteur in the 1950s show it is still effective even when diluted, suggesting that the United States has more than enough vaccine for everyone, according to a report this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

(CIDRAP News) – President Bush today signed the bill establishing Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion program to speed the development of drugs and vaccines to combat the effects of biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological agents.

(CIDRAP News) – More US troops and civilian defense workers serving overseas will be getting smallpox and anthrax vaccinations in coming months, the US Department of Defense (DoD) announced yesterday.

Jan 14, 2003 (CIDRAP News) – The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) says the present is an excellent time for states to prepare for the next influenza pandemic and has issued a report to help show the way.

(CIDRAP News) – The possibility of a smallpox outbreak highlights a key threat to America's public health system: What if a person needs a vaccine but there is no nurse to give the shot?

America's growing shortage of qualified public health workers could undermine terrorism preparedness, according to a recent report from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO).

(CIDRAP News) – In an effort to shed some light on a potential side effect of smallpox vaccination, researchers are launching a federally funded pilot study of the effects of smallpox vaccines on cardiac cells in mice.

(CIDRAP News) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has published a guidebook to help medical examiners and coroners detect and respond to bioterrorism.

(CIDRAP News) – An arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more than $40 million worth of contracts for research to reduce the risk of eczema vaccinatum (EV), a rare but severe complication of smallpox vaccination.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Senate yesterday overwhelmingly passed "Project BioShield," a 10-year, $5.6 billion program to promote rapid development and use of drugs and vaccines to counter biological and chemical weapons.