SMALLPOX, is it back?

reply to post by marg6043


Marg, as far as I know, they have a central location, along with the Russian of the virus.

The military still inoculates its soldiers going to Iraq/Afghanistan as of 2 years ago (Air Force at least) but it was also voluntary surprisingly

Thanks, I should have known about the Military vaccinations for oversea duty.

Originally posted by The_Modulus
reply to post by eightonefive

 

Actually they don't need samples of the virus itself to manufacture the vaccine. There are huge quantities available right now. I think from a sample of vaccine another can be made, without having to revert to using the virus.

But I agree with comments above, there's no point in keeping it around, they should have destroyed it years ago, as they had declared they would. Most likely for future bio-weapons

I'm not a medical expert and just wondering and throwing this out as a query. From what I've read the smallpox vaccine originates from the closely related cow-pox, and not smallpox itself.
If a strain of cow-pox jumped to humans in the distant past, then contact with cattle could well mean it could jump again. And in Africa, cattle are wealth and their blood drunk is as daily nourishment. So perhaps it jumped species once again?

Scary stuff!

Hope i don't ever end up with it.