Should Remaining Stockpiles of Smallpox Virus (Variola) Be Destroyed?
نویسنده
چکیده
In 2011, the World Health Organization will recommend the fate of existing smallpox stockpiles, but circumstances have changed since the complete destruction of these cultures was first proposed. Recent studies suggest that variola and its experimental surrogate, vaccinia, have a remarkable ability to modify the human immune response through complex mechanisms that scientists are only just beginning to unravel. Further study that might require intact virus is essential. Moreover, modern science now has the capability to recreate smallpox or a smallpox-like organism in the laboratory in addition to the risk of nature re-creating it as it did once before. These factors strongly suggest that relegating smallpox to the autoclave of extinction would be ill advised.
منابع مشابه
Strengthening national preparedness for smallpox: an update.
Concern that smallpox virus may be used as a biological weapon of mass destruction has prompted calls for production of additional vaccine and new research into variola virus diagnostics and clinical interventions. Only 15.4 million doses of smallpox vaccine, produced approximately 20 years ago, exist in the United States (1). While virtually all lots remain potent, additional vaccine would cle...
متن کاملRecent events and observations pertaining to smallpox virus destruction in 2002.
To destroy all remaining stocks of variola virus on or before 31 December 2002 seems an even more compelling goal today than it did in 1999, when the 52d World Health Assembly authorized temporary retention of remaining stocks to facilitate the possible development of (1) a more attenuated, less reactogenic smallpox vaccine and (2) an antiviral drug that could be used in treatment of patients w...
متن کاملSmallpox eradication. Destruction of variola virus stocks.
1. The global eradication of smallpox was confirmed in 1980 (resolution WHA33.3). From 1981 to 1986, WHO undertook a programme to implement the post-eradication policies contained in the 1979 report of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication and endorsed by the Health Assembly in resolution WHA33.4. Progress was reviewed year by year from 1981 to 1984 by the WHO Comm...
متن کاملWhy not destroy the remaining smallpox virus stocks?
After the declaration of world-wide smallpox eradication in 980, the World Health Assembly (WHO) has repeatedly called for estruction of all known remaining stocks of the smallpox virus [1]. fficially, only theUS andRussia have smallpox stocks, and neither, eferencing the value of their research agendas, have destroyed heir stocks. In response, WHO established an Advisory Committee n Variola Vi...
متن کاملSmallpox Still Haunts Scientists: Results of a Questionnaire-Based Inquiry on the Views of Health Care and Life Science Experts and Students on Preserving the Remaining Variola Virus Stocks
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared eradication of the dreadful disease "smallpox" in 1980. Though the disease has died down, the causative virus "variola" has not, as it has been well preserved in two high security laboratories-one in USA and another in Russia. The debate on whether the remaining stocks of the smallpox virus should be destroyed or not is ongoing, and the World Health ...
متن کامل