CDC Releases U.S. Plan For Bioterror Outbreak.(Brief Article)

2001 DEC 19 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Health authorities should not force people to be vaccinated against smallpox, even if the virus reappears and begins to spread, the government's top bioterrorism adviser said November 26, 2001, as officials released their response plan.

The plan, developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calls for immediate vaccinations of people close to any patient who contracts the highly contagious smallpox virus. Disease detectives would retrace the victim's every move, searching for and vaccinating all those who may have been infected. The vaccination is still effective several days after the recipient has been exposed to smallpox.

People should not be forced to receive the vaccination, said Dr. D.A. Henderson, the top bioterrorism official at the Department of Health and Human Services.

"This really did not work well at all,'' said Henderson, who led the global campaign that succeeded in eradicating smallpox from the globe. "Once you began compelling people and people began to try to escape from being vaccinated, you lost the confidence of the people, and it became a really, often, a very difficult situation.''

"I think that you're trying to persuade the population, trying to corral people in an appropriate way,'' he added. "Without trying to do this by force, you get ahead a lot further.''

Smallpox hasn't occurred in the United States since 1949 and was declared eradicated from the globe in 1980. But bioterrorism experts worry that the virus could be obtained by terrorists and intentionally released in the general population.

The CDC response plan is based on Henderson's global campaign: Identify the victims, isolate them to keep them from infecting others, and vaccinate anyone with whom they have may come into contact. Investigators would interview each patient in ...