Last Updated

06 Jan 2003

Source: Reuters, May 18, 2002.

U.N. health body postpones destruction of smallpox

GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) postponed on Saturday the planned destruction of the world's last remaining stocks of smallpox virus to allow more research into vaccines against the bioterror weapon.

Two years ago, the United Nations top health body set 2002 as the deadline for getting rid of remaining stocks amid hopes that the killer disease, officially declared eradicated in 1977, would never return.

But the deaths of five people from anthrax in the United States following the September 11 suicide plane attacks raised the spectre of extremist political groups getting access to virulent biological agents such as the smallpox virus.

Once one of the world's most feared diseases, smallpox kills about 30 percent of its victims and leaves others disfigured. There is no effective treatment once somebody falls ill, but administering the vaccine in the days following exposure can prevent the disease developing.

Its eradication was considered one of world medicine's greatest successes and the international community was anxious to crown the achievement by finally eliminating the remaining stocks of the virus.

The currently available vaccines can be fatal in a small number of cases and cannot be given to people with weakened immune systems, including HIV/AIDS sufferers and transplant recipients.

As expected, the World Health Assembly, the WHO's top decision-taking body, accepted a recommendation by the organization's executive board, itself based on the findings of a special expert committee, that the remaining stocks be retained and that the issue be reviewed not later than 2005.

The executive board decision was announced in January following a meeting in Geneva.

The only official stocks of variola virus, the smallpox agent, are held in the United States and Russia, but officials say that nobody can be sure that some has not fallen into other hands.

The U.S. stocks are kept at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, while the Russian stocks are at the Center for Research non Virology and Biotechnology, located in the Urals town of Koltsovo.

The WHO carries out biosafety inspections on the strict containment of the stocks.