Smallpox is a serious, contagious, and sometimes fatal infectious disease. There is no specific treatment for smallpox disease, and the only prevention is vaccination. The last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1949. The last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977.
After the disease was eliminated from the world, routine vaccination against smallpox among the general public was stopped because it was no longer necessary for prevention.
In the aftermath of the events of September and October, 2001, there is heightened concern that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bio-terrorism. For this reason, the U.S. government is taking precautions for dealing with a smallpox outbreak.
It's out there in purloined bio-weapons like so many other things the Russians have "lost track of". The reporter perhaps shouldn't have included it here but it is too potentially devastating to dismiss out of hand.
No, the reporter should not have included it because the context of his inclusion is ridiculous and ignorant. This article is not about Soviet bioweaponry; it's about illegal immigrants..
The last contraction of smallpox - though associated with laboratory work - was at Birmingham, England in 1978.