U.S. officials ready plan for quarantine.(Brief Article)

2002 AUG 7 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- U.S. health officials are quietly making plans for quarantining Americans who might be exposed to a highly contagious smallpox patient, addressing sensitive questions of how to hold people, possibly against their will, in case of a bioterror attack.

The planning, still in draft form, addresses complex logistical and policy questions, including where people would be kept while waiting for officials to confirm a smallpox case and, if necessary, administer vaccinations.

"It's not pretty to think through these type of doomsday scenarios, but it's important to start to put yourself there and imagine things unfolding if you want to anticipate how to react," said Dr. Marty Cetron, a quarantine expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The plan was scheduled to be circulated among top federal officials and others involved in the preparation, said Cetron, who cochairs a CDC working group on the issue.

The group began with this scenario: Officials get word that an international flight is headed for the United States with a smallpox-infected passenger aboard. The case would be fairly easy because the people would be in one place and health officials wouldn't have to track them down.

Still, if the passengers weren't held for treatment, CDC experts estimate that a plane filled with 500 people including one with smallpox could result in dozens - maybe hundreds - of sick people, including passengers on the plane who got sick and the people they would infect.

The vaccine is only effective within four days of someone being exposed to smallpox, so if people leave the scene it would be difficult to find them in time.