CDC updates smallpox response plan for state and local health officials

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a plan for responding to a smallpox outbreak, agency employees said Monday. The plan is aimed at state and local public health officials. The draft plan provides information to public health officers on how to respond to a case of smallpox in their community. The plan includes information on tracing the victim's family and other contacts and how to establish quarantines, set up vaccination clinics and handle the news media. The plan dates back to 1972, but was recently revised to reflect new concerns that smallpox could be used in a bioterrorist attack. The plan will be updated as needed, CDC officials said. The agency issued the guidance to help state and local health agencies immediately develop strategies for allocating staff and other resources in the event of a smallpox outbreak, according to Dr. Lisa Rotz, a CDC bioterrorism preparedness expert. "We've worked to identify personnel here that would be rapidly available to go and assist state and local officials in doing that [handling a smallpox emergency], as well as worked on training those personnel so that they can implement this plan rather rapidly," Rotz said during a conference call with reporters Monday. The plan does not recommend vaccinating people against smallpox, even state and local public health officials, unless the CDC confirms a case of the disease. The vaccine can cause serious side effects, including severe brain swelling, that could do more harm than good in people not exposed to the disease. At this point, the CDC does not have any information that there is an increased risk of a smallpox outbreak, Rotz said. Smallpox, a highly contagious virus with a 30 percent mortality rate, was eradicated from the planet in 1980, with the last known case of the disease occurring in Somalia in 1977. The government, which currently has 15 million doses of the smallpox vaccine, wants to create a stockpile of about 300 million doses by next year. The CDC vaccinated more than 100 of its front-line employees against smallpox in November, and eventually hopes to inoculate 200 'first responders' from the agency, according to CDC spokesman Curtis Allen The CDC is ready to send the vaccine anywhere in the country in a matter of hours if the need arises, Rotz said. Under the response plan, state and local public health officials would contact the CDC with reports of any suspected smallpox cases. If a suspected victim tested positive for smallpox, the CDC would send a federal response team to the area to vaccinate the victim, health personnel and others who may have come in contact with the disease through the victim.