Last Updated

29 Nov 2002

Source: Reuters, November 28, 2002.

Canada, Fearing Attack, to Buy Smallpox Vaccines

By Rajiv Sekhri

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada, responding to an al Qaeda tape that names it as a possible target for attack, is to buy enough smallpox vaccine to inoculate all residents against the deadly disease, the health ministry said on Thursday.

But officials at the ministry, and at the company that would probably supply the vaccine, admitted it could take 10 months before the requested 10 million doses of the vaccine were delivered -- enough, when diluted, for every Canadian.

"The view is that the possibility that smallpox could be used as biological weapon is low," said Health Canada spokeswoman Tara Madigan. "However, Canada felt it was prudent to take all necessary steps to protect the health and safety and security of all Canadians."

Canada was named as an al Qaeda target nearly two weeks ago in a tape believed to have been recorded by the group's leader, Osama bin Laden, who is considered by Washington to be the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The tape warned that U.S. allies such as Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Australia, could be targets if they continued to support the administration of President Bush.

The United States has already ordered millions of doses of smallpox vaccine and says it has enough for every man, woman and child in the country.

Magidan said Canada currently has has enough vaccine to inoculate up to 1.5 million people, if there were a biological attack before that time. She was sure other countries would help if help was needed before then.

"There would be a sharing of resources," she said.

Firms have 15 days to tender to Health Canada, but the contract is likely to go to Ontario-based Aventis Pasteur Ltd., part of French pharmaceutical giant Aventis, and considered the only one capable of filling the order.

The cost will be negotiated once a supplier has been found. Based on prices paid by the United States, the vaccine could cost Ottawa some C$40 million ($25 million).

Luis Barreto, Aventis Pasteur's director of international health affairs, said his company could deliver the vaccine in nine months if it gets the contract.

"Fortunately, our vaccine is so strong that it can be given within the first three to four days after a person has been exposed and is still effective in reducing mortality," he said.

Canada is considering vaccinating 500 high-risk personnel immediately -- mostly doctors and nurses who would have to deal with any outbreak -- and storing the rest of the vaccine.

Smallpox, a highly contagious illness, was eradicated in 1978 after a worldwide vaccination campaign. It causes fever and then a rash, developing into ugly open sores and pustules.

Security experts fear extremist groups might get their hands on enough of the virus to use it as a biological weapon.

"It is a disease that we were able to eradicate very effectively with vaccinations, and I think we would be able to do that again," said Frank Plummer, scientific director general at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada's equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"It's not going to sweep through the Canadian population," he added, noting that victims only became contagious after the rash developed, at which time they were already very ill.

The Winnipeg lab does not hold stocks of the smallpox virus -- the only legitimate stocks are in the United States and Russia -- but it set up smallpox diagnostic facilities after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington and a series of still unexplained anthrax cases in the United States.

Canada stopped smallpox vaccinations for infants in 1972, but people inoculated before that year will need to get vaccinated again in case of an attack, Health Canada said.