- ATLANTA (Reuters) - U.S.
health officials said on Tuesday they were investigating whether the smallpox
vaccine had contributed to the death last weekend of a Maryland nurse and
serious side effects in six other people recently inoculated against the
virus.
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- The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
which has been spearheading a campaign to vaccinate almost half a million
front line health care workers and technicians, said it was recommending
that people with heart disease not be vaccinated until an investigation
was completed.
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- "We're adding a temporary deferral for the smallpox
vaccine for persons who have been diagnosed with a history of heart disease,"
CDC spokeswoman Karen Hunter said. Hunter added that the unidentified Maryland
woman had suffered from heart disease before being vaccinated.
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- Earlier this month, top U.S. health officials said that
reports of side-effects linked to the current smallpox program were overblown.
Smallpox kills about 30 percent of its victims and scars the remainder
for life. It was eradicated in nature in 1979.
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- The United States stopped routine smallpox vaccinations
in 1972, but decided to resume them for select groups last year as fears
grew that the virus could be used as a weapon by radical groups or countries
like Iraq.
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- When administered in the past the vaccine killed between
one to two out of every million people inoculated and caused others to
suffer brain damage. But it has never before been linked to heart problems.
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- Maryland state health department spokesman J.B. Hanson
told Reuters a preliminary autopsy of the Maryland nurse, who died on Sunday
after receiving a smallpox vaccination on March 18, showed the cause of
death to be "some sort of heart condition" although that was
not yet certain.
-
- "I can assure you they are vigorously looking into
this," Hanson said, noting the Department of Health of the neighboring
state of Virginia, where the woman died, was assisting Maryland and the
CDC.
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- "At this point there's no correlation between the
vaccination and her death," Hanson said.
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- He could not give the nurse's name or age, but said she
worked at a private Maryland hospital and was one of 414 state health workers
who had been vaccinated so far as part of the national vaccination effort.
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- If confirmed, however, it could be the first smallpox
vaccine-related death since the start of the national vaccination campaign
in January.
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- President Bush ordered the vaccination program late last
year amid growing fears that smallpox and other deadly pathogens could
be used in a bioterrorist attack.
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- Five Americans died in 2001 when letters with anthrax
bacteria were mailed to U.S. media organizations and politicians. No one
has ever been charged in connection with the attacks.
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- But the federal government's smallpox vaccination plans
have been marred by concerns about side-effects as well as a sharp dispute
over who should pay for those who become sick after being vaccinated.
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- The vaccine being used comes from 30-year-old stocks.
It uses a live virus called vaccinia that is related to smallpox and can
have severe side-effects, mostly in young children and those with weak
immune systems.
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- Some 500,000 troops are being vaccinated and the U.S.
Health and Human Services Department hopes to eventually vaccinate 450,000
health care workers in the first round of the program.
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- The CDC says about 20,000 civilian health workers have
been vaccinated across the country so far against smallpox, so they would
be ready to vaccinate others and treat patients in case of an attack.
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