MASS SMALLPOX VACCINATION COMING SOON

Report: 500,000 Workers to Get Smallpox Vaccine

July 7
— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government plans to vaccinate half a million health-care and emergency workers against smallpox in case of a bioterror attack and is preparing for mass vaccinations of the public, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The newspaper said the government's aggressive plans, which it attributed to federal officials, are possible because the vaccine has been produced rapidly and stockpiled since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"Now we can act differently because we have more vaccine," Dr. Donald A. Henderson, senior science adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson.

The U.S. plan to increase the number of workers vaccinated to around 500,000 comes amid talk of war against Iraq, which some experts suspect of hiding smallpox stocks.

Henderson, who led the global smallpox eradication program, told the Times that if there was a crisis, "we can make vaccine available on request throughout the community."

About 100 million doses of the smallpox vaccine are now available and by late this year there will be enough for every American, more than 280 million people, the Times reported.

The government had initially planned to vaccinate only a few thousand health workers against the highly contagious disease, which was declared eradicated globally in 1980, eight years after the United States stopped routine vaccinations.

Jerome M. Hauer, acting assistant secretary for emergency preparedness at Health and Human Services, said the agency hoped to send blueprints for how to conduct mass vaccinations to cities and states in the next week or two, the Times said.

The newspaper reported hospital workers and smallpox response teams would begin getting shots fairly soon.

Smallpox used to killed one in three people who were infected but not vaccinated, and most people today are considered vulnerable because immunity is believed to diminish with time, the newspaper said.