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Tuesday, August 19, 2003A controversial new report questions US government plans to stockpile and administer fresh rounds of smallpox vaccine. Around half of the US population may already have sufficient immunity to save them from death, the report estimates, thanks to jabs given before 1978, when the world was rid of the disease. From a group of more than 300 people vaccinated between 1 and 75 years ago, 90-95% still carry antibodies against vaccinia, the cousin of smallpox used in immunizations, report Mark Slifka, of Oregon Health and Science University in Beaverton, and his colleagues There are a couple of problems. One, everyone under thirty is particularly vulnerable because they've neither been vaccinated nor exposed to the disease before, and thus have zero immunity. Two, the antibodies in immunized people, though detectable, may not be adequate to protect against the disease and its complications: Henderson and others question whether the antibodies that Slifka's team detected would be sufficient to repel a smallpox infection. They point to older studies, carried out when smallpox was still prevalent, suggesting that even vaccinated people began to catch the disease five to ten years after inoculation. Even if people do not die from smallpox, they might still become infected and spread the virus, points out Steve Leach, who studies smallpox epidemiology at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research in Porton Down, UK "It's just as important that people don't get the disease at all," he says. posted by Sydney on 8/19/2003 08:52:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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