The ease of creating a smallpox-like virus, and the growing number of vulnerable people with weakened immune systems, present challenges for emergency response planners, researchers have warned.
Unprecedented levels of immunosuppression in countries such as Australia and the US must be considered in planning for the real risk of smallpox re-emerging in the world, an expert in infectious diseaseswarned.
"Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 but in 2017 Canadian scientists created a smallpox-like virus in a lab using just mail-order DNA," said UNSW Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology Raina MacIntyre. "In 2018, these same scientists published a step-by-step method to create a pox virus in a lab, making the threat of smallpox re-emergence even greater.
"Experts have long feared this scenario, and it is now a reality. READ MORE
