Report: Smallpox Vaccinations Planned

The U.S. government plans to vaccinate half a million health care and emergency workers against smallpox in case of a bioterror attack and is preparing for mass vaccinations of the public, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said the government's aggressive plans, which it attributed to federal officials, are possible because the vaccine has been produced rapidly and stockpiled since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"Now we can act differently because we have more vaccine," Dr. Donald A. Henderson, senior science adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.

A health department spokesman, Bill Pierce, told Reuters on Sunday the exact number of those to be vaccinated had not yet been decided.

The 15-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which sets vaccine policy in the United States, recommended on June 20 that the number of people who get smallpox vaccinations should be expanded, but they stopped short of advising vaccinations for the general public.

Pierce said these recommendations were very general and required more work by HHS and the Centers for Disease Control to identify which groups should be vaccinated.

"Secretary Thompson ultimately makes the decision on policy, but he does so in consultation with experts from HHS and outside experts," Pierce said by telephone.

He said he did not know when Thompson would make the decision.

The U.S. plan to increase the number of workers vaccinated comes amid talk of war against Iraq, which some experts suspect of hiding smallpox stocks.

Henderson, who led the global smallpox eradication program, told the Times that if there was a crisis, "we can make vaccine available on request throughout the community."

About 100 million doses of the smallpox vaccine are now available and by late this year there will be enough for every American, more than 280 million people, the Times reported.

The government had initially planned to vaccinate only a few thousand health workers against the highly contagious disease, which was declared eradicated globally in 1980, eight years after the United States stopped routine vaccinations.

Jerome M. Hauer, acting assistant secretary for emergency preparedness at HHS, said the agency hoped to send blueprints for how to conduct mass vaccinations to cities and states in the next week or two, the Times said.

The newspaper reported hospital workers and smallpox response teams would begin getting shots fairly soon.

Smallpox used to killed one in three people who were infected but not vaccinated, and most people today are considered vulnerable because immunity is believed to diminish with time, the newspaper said.