Small Pox New Vaccine

Global warming, climate changes and Globalisation, altogether play havoc with Man and Nature. India has become a dumping ground of everything junk, poisonous and injurous to health. Indian law and policy makers are least concerned with public health as the concept of Welfare State withers away! HIV and Condom marketing, mineral water, prohibited chemicals, vaccines- everything targets the poor Indians! So once again a Small Pox Red Alert and A New Vaccineawaiting FDI clearance!
Smallpox is highly contagious and spreads primarily through prolonged social contact or direct contact with infected body fluids or contaminated objects, such as bedding or clothes. It can spread through the air in closed spaces but isn’t transmitted by insects or animals.Officials said the School of Tropical Medicine, Calcutta, is still equipped for diagnostic tests for the virus.Early symptoms are high temperature (101-104°C), bodyache and headache. In two to three days, red spots appear in the mouth and tongue and break open into sores. Rashes all over the body follow.The rashes become fluid-filled bumps that turn into pustules. Finally, scabs form and fall off, often leaving lifelong pitted scars. Occasional side effects include blindness and infertility in males.Smallpox was last reported in India in 1975, when around 1,400 people were infected. The disease is caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor.The deadlier form, V. major, has a mortality rate of 3 to 35 per cent while V. minor causes a milder form of the disease called alastrim and kills less than 1 per cent of patients.

“The world is unprepared”

The World Health Organisation had declared the disease eradicated in 1979, so vaccines are not available. No specific cure is known for the viral infection that can kill up to a third of patients.

West Bengal health officials have said the School of Tropical Medicine, Calcutta, is still equipped for diagnostic tests for the virus. However the STM told TIMES NOW that all vaccines to fight the disease had been destroyed after the elimination of the disease globally.

Speaking to TIMES NOW, Director of the School of Tropical Medicine N K Pal Shah said no country, except perhaps UK, USA and Russia, currently has vaccines against Small Pox.

“The whole world is unprepared to combat the disease,” he said adding that prevention of an outbreak would include identifying and quarantining the suspected case as well as the neighbourhood and vaccinating them within 4 days of the onset of first case. “But, I believe report floated by media is unconfirmed report,” said Shah.


Small pox and measles is being spread among children in the Burma-Bangladesh border area, reports a health worker. Many children in Maungdaw Township are now suffering from the disease, which broke out in the area at the beginning of last month. The disease is now infecting children in the border area of Bangladesh near Burma. A doctor from Nila border town in Teknaf confirmed that many children in the area are suffering from a small pox and measles epidemic.
http://www.narinjara.com/details.asp?id=1277

However, Bangladesh authorities have not yet confirmed any case of small pox and said they have been investigating the situation.In Kolkata, The West Bengal government issued a warning in all districts after reports from New Delhi about the possible return of smallpox, considered eradicated from the world 30 years ago, along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.
The West Bengal Director of Health Services Sanchita Bakshi said border security agencies have been asked to monitor if anyone is entering India with fever, one of the symptoms of the disease.
"There is no need to panic as this is a false alarm," Health Secretary Naresh Dayal told reporters in New Delhi.Dayal said, his ministry had interacted with the World Health Organisation (WHO), which assured them that there is no outbreak of smallpox either in Bangladesh or Myanmar.
Authorities in the health ministry said the whole scare germinated after a message from the government to a few border states about a possible outbreak of smallpox in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Cherian Varghese, a senior health coordinator of WHO-India, said that vigilance is always good but there is no such outbreak in Bangladesh. "We have no knowledge of it. Neither people nor authorities should not worry," he told IANS.
Smallpox jitters after 28 years but WHO denies the report.The World Health Organisation has said reports of small pox outbreak in Bangladesh is yet to be checked but there is no eruption of the deadly disease in Myanmar, West Bengal Health Minister Suryakanata Mishra today said here. Alarmed by reported outbreak of small pox at Rajshahi district in Bangladesh, West Bengal government had yesterday sounded a general alert in the state's northern districts.
"The WHO's South Asia office has informed the National Institute of Communicable Diseases that it is not small pox that has infected some people in Myanmar," Mishra told newspersons here.
"Regarding Bangladesh, they are yet to get information whether the disease is small pox or something else," he said.

Stating that steps like screening people coming in from Bangladesh through land borders or at the airports have begun, Mishra said there was no need to be alarmed.

"The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) at Atlanta in the USA has been contacted on the issue," he said adding that at present there was no preventive medicine for small pox as WHO had several years back declared that small pox had been eradicated.

Now see the report as WHO has denied the report of Small Pox. Is this the marketing of a New Small Pox Vaccine?

Acambis Small Pox Vaccine Awaiting FDA Endorsement
Written by OJ Fagbire
Wednesday, 16 May 2007
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By Thursday, a small pox vaccine produced by Acambis PLC will be reviewed by a panel set up by the Food and Drug Administration. The Acambis small pox vaccine is rated as a second-generation vaccine which is manufactured by applying the cell-culture lines. The vaccine is a derivative of an older vaccine called Dryvax, made by Wyeth.

The manufacturer of the vaccine claims to be awaiting the endorsement of the FDA before sourcing for funds from the government via grants. The vaccine which is also called ACAM2000 would not be sold commercially in the United States since the routine vaccination of children in the US stopped in 1972.

Skin rash is one of the results of the virus and it could be severe and deadly in some cases, say 30% of the entire cases.

According to the FDA, safety measures with small pox vaccines like ACAM2000 and Dryvax is of utmost concern. There some side effects accompanying the vaccines and they comprise of seldom cases of inflammation of the heart-wall muscle known as myopericarditis and severe skin infections. A Report from clinical research says Acambis vaccine has no fatalities.

The agency carrying out the studies reached an observation that one of the studies involving the vaccines suggested the rate of myopericarditis is higher than previously suspected. Ten cases of myopericarditis were seen in the studies and manifested in both vaccines.

The FDA concluded that, ‘‘However, the potential benefits of administration of ACAM2000 during a smallpox outbreak to persons who are determined to be at high risk of exposure or who have been recently exposed outweigh potential risks.’’

http://www.vaccinerx.com/news/latest/acambis-small-pox-vaccine-awaiting-fda-endorsement-20070516-273-26.html