NEWS: As part of ongoing preparedness efforts against biodefense threats, HHS will purchase smallpox vaccine to build and replenish vaccine stored in the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) over the next decade.
As part of ongoing preparedness efforts against biodefense threats, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will purchase smallpox vaccine, called ACAM2000, to build and replenish vaccine stored in theUnder the agreement announced today, the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response , which oversees the SNS, will award approximately $170 million to Emergent BioSolutions of Gaithersburg, Maryland, for the purchase this year.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration licensed the smallpox vaccine in 2007 for people at high risk for smallpox infection. To be cost-efficient, the SNS rotates stored smallpox vaccine to DoD for military members deploying to high-risk areas, and HHS then replenishes the vaccine stockpile. Smallpox is a serious and highly infectious disease caused by the variola virus; historically, 30 percent of people with the infection died. Following a global public health campaign, which relied on vaccination, the World Health Organization declared the disease eradicated in 1980. Samples of the virus remain in two top-security laboratories, one in the United States and the other in Russia, for use in developing vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests for smallpox infections.
"Smallpox is one of the most contagious and deadly infections known to humankind," said HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec, MD."We do not know whether all samples of the virus, outside of two WHO-designated labs, actually have been found and destroyed; at the same time, synthetic biology for technology continues to advance and in the future could allow smallpox to be created as a bioweapon.
The United States has a long-standing commitment to the international community to develop two vaccines and two treatments for smallpox infections.
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