Posted on 12/07/2001 1:46:46 PM PST by Patriot
From this thread:
Clinical Features
The incubation period of smallpox is usually 12-14 days (range 7-17) during which there is no evidence of viral shedding. During this period, the person looks and feels healthy and cannot infect others. The incubation period is followed by the sudden onset of influenza-like symptoms including fever, malaise, headache, prostration, severe back pain and, less often, abdominal pain and vomiting. Two to three days later, the temperature falls and the patient feels somewhat better, at which time the characteristic rash appears, first on the face, hands and forearms and then after a few days progressing to the trunk. Lesions also develop in the mucous membranes of the nose and mouth, and ulcerate very soon after their formation, releasing large amounts of virus into the mouth and throat.
The centrifugal distribution of lesions, more prominent on the face and extremities than on the trunk, is a distinctive diagnostic feature of smallpox and gives the trained eye cause to suspect the disease. Lesions progress from macules to papules, to vesicles, to pustules. All lesions in a given area progress together through these stages. From 8 to 14 days after the onset of symptoms, the pustules form scabs which leave depressed, depigmented scars upon healing.
Smallpox was sometimes confused with chickenpox, a worldwide infection of children that is seldom lethal. Chickenpox can be distinguished from smallpox by its much more superficial lesions, their presence more on the trunk than on the face and extremities, and by the development of successive crops of lesions in the same area. Smallpox is a disease which can be easily diagnosed by trained health workers without the need for laboratory support. During the eradication campaign, WHO produced training materials designed to help health staff recognize smallpox, distinguish it from chickenpox, and avoid common diagnostic errors. These materials are now available electronically. (A WHO slide set on the diagnosis of smallpox can be found at http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/smallpox/slideset/index.htm).
Infectivity
Persons carrying the virus during the incubation period cannot infect others. The frequency of infection is highest after face-to-face contact with a patient once fever has begun and during the first week of rash, when the virus is released via the respiratory tract. Although patients remain infectious until the last scabs fall off, the large amounts of virus shed from the skin are not highly infectious. Exposure to patients in the late stages of the disease is much less likely to produce infection in susceptible contacts. As a precaution, WHO isolation policy during the eradication campaign required that patients remain in isolation, in hospital or at home, until the last scab had separated.
In the future would you mind exercising a bit more discretion?
Nowhere else.
See 101. :-)
Sort of like the little boy who cried "wolf"...no one would listen to him when the real one showed up. We ALL remember that little story.
sw
...or small pork.
Those are the only official small pox left.
The Soviets grew lots of it for use in germ warfare. It is believed other countries, including N. Korea have also developed it as germ warfare. Iraq is a key question.
If it is used by terrorists it could be from Russian black market or from a regime, such as Iraq or N. Korea.
Growing it as a weapon would not need access to the two official stores.
This is addressed to all.
The vaccine, if given early enough, and today would be, will stave off a case of small pox.
This would mean the people exposed would not get sick, but would still be contagious for a bit.
There would not necessarily need to be a strict quarentine. But, everyone they come in contact with would need to be vaccinated as well.
If this true and people have been exposed (in other words it is not that it is in a vial or something -- and I think, and pray, this will turn out to be a hoax) it can be dealt with so that no one gets sick and there is no transmission of any significant sort.
Actually, if something like this is to happen, having it occur on an airplane in such a manner is one of the best scenarios imaginable in terms of dealing with it.
You don't wanna risk seeing smallpox pustules, then don't open a "smallpox" thread. Simple as that.
Have you ever been in the middle of a smallpox epidemic? Do you know exactly what to expect? Would you and your family be forced against your will to stay in the vacinity of people who are dying from a dreadful disease, or would you be allowed to leave? Have you ever experienced any of this in your country in your lifetime? No?
That's the "fear of the unknown" to which I was referring.
We're actually more knowlegable about what to expect from smallpox than we were about anthrax, at least from an epidemiological standpoint.
I think you just didn't understand what I was trying to say.
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