Feds Prepare for Smallpox Quarantine

Associated Press / ABC ^

[RCW2001]

Feds Prepare for Smallpox Quarantine

Federal Officials Ready Plan for Quarantine in Case of Smallpox

The Associated Press

A T L A N T A, July 8 — Federal health officials are quietly making plans for quarantining Americans who might be exposed to a highly contagious smallpox patient, addressing sensitive questions of how to hold people, possibly against their will, in case of a bioterror attack.

The planning, still in draft form, addresses complex logistical and policy questions, including where people would be kept while waiting for officials to confirm a smallpox case and, if necessary, administer vaccinations.

"It's not pretty to think through these type of doomsday scenarios, but it's important to start to put yourself there and imagine things unfolding if you want to anticipate how to react," said Dr. Marty Cetron, a quarantine expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Within the next few weeks, the plan will be circulated among top federal officials and others involved in the preparation, said Cetron, who co-chairs a CDC working group on the issue.

The group began with this scenario: Officials get word that an international flight is headed for the United States with a smallpox-infected passenger aboard. The case would be fairly easy because the people would be in one place and health officials wouldn't have to track them down.

Still, if the passengers weren't held for treatment, CDC experts estimate that a plane filled with 500 people including one with smallpox could result in dozens maybe hundreds of sick people, including passengers on the plane who got sick and the people they would infect.

The vaccine is only effective within four days of someone being exposed to smallpox, so if people leave the scene it would be difficult to find them in time.

Under the plan, officials would stress that people would be better off staying in quarantine because that's where the vaccine and other medications would be available. That's a big change from past centuries, when people in quarantine were written off, Cetron said.

"All the goodies will be delivered inside the box," he said. "It's a fundamental difference to spend as much, if not more attention, on monitoring and preserving the health on the people inside the box."

Once planning is complete for this scenario, the CDC group plans to tackle more complicated situations, such as a smallpox patient in a sports stadium or an infected person wandering through an airport.

Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, but samples of the deadly virus still exist in both the United States and Russia. Bioterrorism experts consider the possibility of a smallpox attack one of the most frightening, albeit unlikely, threats because one infected patient could infect many others.

Routine immunizations against smallpox in the United States ended in 1972, meaning many Americans have no protection against the disease. Federal officials are now considering vaccinating as many as 500,000 health care workers and emergency personnel who would be first to see any smallpox case. But because the vaccine carries significant risks, including death, officials do not want to resume mass vaccinations a point President Bush made Monday.

"I worry about calling for a national vaccination program and that it could cause a loss of life," Bush said at a White House news conference.

Rather, the plan is to vaccinate others only if they are exposed to the virus, or exposed to someone who is exposed. Another alternative one endorsed Monday in a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences would be mass vaccinating all Americans if a smallpox case emerged. The authors of that study predicted significantly fewer people would die using a mass vaccination strategy.

The airliner scenario is not entirely fictitious. In December, a flight from Taiwan bound for Newark, N.J., was delayed for about four hours in Seattle after an anonymous tipster told U.S. Customs Service agents that a passenger had smallpox. It turned out to be a hoax, but the situation provided a real-life example of how people on the plane reacted.

"People got really scared because they sat there on a plane for two hours without any idea what was going on," said Kristy Lillibridge, an epidemiologist who is part of the CDC working group.

The draft CDC plan calls for taking the airplane to a hangar or another facility where passengers can get off without going into the airport, she said. The suspicious passenger would be isolated from the others, but everyone would be kept in quarantine while officials did tests to determine if the passenger was in fact infected with smallpox.

Still unresolved: how long to keep people if a smallpox exposure is confirmed. Options include one to two days, or long enough to give the shots; seven days, long enough to see if the vaccination worked; or 17 days, when no one would be contagious anymore.

"It is such a sensitive topic. Those kinds of decisions, to actually use a quarantine, will be made at very high levels," Cetron said.

Other elements of the plan, officials said, include:

If possible, diverting the flight to one of eight international airports where the CDC has quarantine operations in place, or to another airport where the local public health authorities are prepared to handle the case.

Creating clear messages and announcements to deliver to passengers, including those that would be read by the pilot while they are still on the plane.

Providing beds, restrooms, food and access to medication for anyone in quarantine.

[Iwo Jima]

"I worry about calling for a national vaccination program and that it could cause a loss of life," Bush said at a White House news conference.

Well, then, DON'T call for it! Just allow individual citizens and their physicians the freedom to decide for themselves if they should get the vaccine or not.

IT'S NOT YOUR DECISION!!!! WHAT PART OF THAT DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?????

[small voice in the wilderness]

"All the goodies will be delivered inside the box,"

And this is how they get the sheeple to follow. Anywhere, anytime. This is a chilling statement.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[11B3]

If this were taking place during Clinton's reign, I'd be screaming that his "National Emergency" declaration was right around the corner and the camps were waiting for all who stayed put. Welcome to the new government: FEMA.

Well, this time I'm not so sure. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see the President as being one who has any desire to be our dictator like that DNA spewing jerk that preceeded him. I still agree that it should be OUR CHOICE on getting the shots now instead of after the fact. Prevention anyone? If this reluctance to vaccinate the population is in order to spare those with HIV/AIDS, I'm sorry, but f_ck 'em (no pun intended) - they're outta here anyway, and sometimes life just isn't fair. When it's life or death (theirs or mine), sorry, no choice there for me - how about the rest of you? That would be a case of the government taking this gay agenda a little too seriously for my tastes.

[GaltMeister]

Did I really read this, sitting at my desk in the United States of America? And from an American news source? Unbelieveable

[Gritty]

The logical solution is to let people who want to have the vaccine right now have it. If they end up exposed, all they need do is provide evidence in their shot record, which they should carry with them on trips.

Those that haven't had their vaccinationthat get exposed will have to go into quarantine.

[niki]

bump

[Pushi]

I didn't read the whole article, but why don't we quarantine people with AIDS?

[Pushi]

Is the smallpox vaccination I got in 1953 still effective?

[Pushi]

I don't have a shot card, but I have a scar.

[Pushi]

Maybe getting a smallpox vaccination would solve a lot of problems.

[StACase]

.....why don't we quarantine people with AIDS?

First thing that crossed my mind!

BUMP!

[Michael Barnes]

why don't we quarantine people with AIDS?

My thought as well..thanks for brining it up..

[thepitts]

it's important to start to put yourself there and imagine things unfolding if you want to anticipate how to react

Very good advice.

[texasbluebell]

I didn't read the whole article, but why don't we quarantine people with AIDS?

That's exactly what should have been done near the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Just as those with TB and other communicable diseases were quarantined, when common sense once ruled.

[Kensei]

Yes. The antibodies that you developed as the result of that vacination are still with you. Small pox poses a danger to those who strated school after 1972. Before that date, a small pox vacination was mandatory to attend public or private schools in the US.

[FITZ]

Well, then, DON'T call for it! Just allow individual citizens and their physicians the freedom to decide for themselves if they should get the vaccine or not.

What a concept. Just let people make the decision for themselves with their doctor. They insist that abortion which takes the life of another is a decision between the woman and her doctor ---so why not the same for vaccination? Why does the government think they have to control every aspect of our lives, even our health and deaths?

[FITZ]

Is the smallpox vaccination I got in 1953 still effective?

If the certain cells in your body that could "remember" it are still there. There are memory cells that stay in the body a long time but immunity can fade especially if someone ever had chemotherapy.

[Slyfox]

U.S. health officials said on July 8, 2002 they are considering the possibility of mass inoculations to combat a smallpox attack. Although they are still formulating the policy, a spokesman said such a widespread effort was among the scenarios being weighed in the event of any smallpox attack -- now considered more likely after a series of anthrax-laced letters killed five people last fall and made 13 other severely ill. Smallpox lesions on the skin are shown in this photograph taken in 1973 in Bangladesh. (CDC via Reuters)