Should cell culture smallpox vaccine be offered to general population?

2003 MAR 19 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- The new cell culture smallpox vaccine should be offered to the general population, some researchers say, others say no.

According to researchers in the United States, reporting in Reviews in Medical Virology, "A series of major factors must be weighed in deciding whether or not, and to what extent, a particular country should consider pre-exposure vaccination for smallpox. These include the risk of a bioterrorist attack using smallpox, the risk of secondary spread from another country, the risks and benefits of vaccination, the effectiveness of vaccination pre- and postexposure, the prevalence of immunocompromised persons, the capacity of the medical care delivery system and the wealth of a nation."

"We review here the issues and variables relevant for policy making, propose a framework for country-specific decision making and suggest the World Health Organization has a key role to play, particularly with regard to lower-income countries," said William Bicknell at Boston University. "In doing so, we support the proposition.

In another report in the same issue of Reviews in Medical Virology, other researchers believe that that the new cell culture smallpox vaccine should NOT be offered to the general population.

According to recent research from England, "Cell based smallpox vaccines are to be welcomed, but any decision to vaccinate whole populations must await firstly better intelligence about the gravity of the threat from bioterrorists, including their ability to release smallpox in such a way that wide dissemination could take place; secondly evidence that vaccines grown in cell culture are protective and safe; and thirdly that the vaccines would be generally acceptable and their introduction would not compromise the rest of national ...