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WHO Board Backs Retention of Smallpox Strains
The Executive Board of the World Health Organization yesterday supported the U.S. and Russian argument that the two nations should be allowed to retain their smallpox strains for biodefense research purposes, the Wall Street Journal reported (see GSN, Jan. 18).Gathering in Geneva, the 34-member board agreed that more study is needed of the highly virulent disease before the last known smallpox cultures are destroyed. Moscow and Washington assert that their work would produce new vaccines and other countermeasures against an act of biological terrorism or an outbreak caused by a previously unknown supply of the virus, according to informed sources.
Smallpox was formally declared eradicated from nature in 1980.
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