PUBLIC health authorities in the US are too busy vaccinating people against smallpox to watch for an actual outbreak. Yet if terrorists ever did release the virus, spotting the disease early would be the most effective way of containing an outbreak.
In December, President Bush announced that 500,000 “first responders”, mainly hospital and ambulance staff, would be offered smallpox vaccination by the end of February. By the middle of the year, 10 million are meant to have been vaccinated. These healthcare workers are the people most likely to come into early contact with infected people in any outbreak, and if they are not immune they could…
