Re: Possibility of a Smallpox Outbreak in 2002

From: S.J. Van Sickle (sjvan@csd.uwm.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 05 2002 - 17:03:37 MST


On Tue, 5 Feb 2002, pchaston wrote:

> How accurate is this scenario in tracking such a pandemic? Or should we see
> such commentaries as alarmist?

Accurate only if a weaponized smallpox is used, dispursed as a aerosol
that creates a few hundred thousand "index" cases. That would be very
bad, and probably impossible to contain. Pretty much a worst case for
unmodified smallpox.

A scenario where a few self infected terrorists walk around the airport is
probably fairly easily contained, but pretty scary nevertheless.

Even the worst case could probably be contained with enough vaccine
available an aggressive approach.

steve



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