US plans to 'stockpile smallpox vaccine'
The US Government is to buy enough smallpox vaccine to treat the country's entire population as fears grow of new bioterrorism attacks.
US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson says he expects to sign a contract this weekend to enable each man, woman and child to be immunised from the disease.
But he has warned the White House the extra 250 million doses at around $8 each could cost four times the department's entire bio-terrorism budget.
There were also fears that former Soviet scientists were helping to "weaponise" the smallpox virus for nations such as Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea. The US Government has already started emergency preparations for a possible terrorist smallpox attack.
Doctors are being trained to recognise the disease and crack teams of experts have been vaccinated, ready to rush to any part of the country and deal with an outbreak.
Dr James Hughes, director of The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said: "Our concerns are not to be limited to anthrax."
Officials are also worried about possible attacks involving other diseases, including botulism, plague and tularemia - an animal disease that can cause skin ulcers and pneumonia-like symptoms in humans. But smallpox is especially feared because it is extremely contagious and has a high death rate.
The disease was eradicated worldwide 21 years ago, and millions of US citizens under the age of 30 are at risk because the US stopped vaccinations in 1972.
Older people who were immunised a long time ago may also be susceptible to smallpox because the vaccine may have worn off.
Only a few hundred doctors in the US have seen a case of smallpox, when they took part in the World Health Organisation's programme to eradicate the disease several years ago.
