April 13, 2002
By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor

THE Government has built up Britain’s supplies of smallpox vaccine to guard the population against a possible germ warfare attack.

The move is one of of a package of measures introduced because of the increased fear of terrorism after September 11.

Until now, the Department of Health had refused to say what measures had been taken, but yesterday it confirmed that additional doses of the vaccine had been bought. It refused, however, to confirm newspaper reports that £32 million had been spent on 30 million doses from Powderject Pharmaceuticals, a British company.

A spokesman said: “As part of the Government’s continuing vigilance against international terrorism we have secured supplies of smallpox vaccine. There is no credible threat but it is important that the Government takes all necessary steps to ensure the protection of the population.

“For obvious national security reasons we can’t discuss these arrangements in detail.”

It had been estimated that Britain had strategic stocks of about three million doses of smallpox vaccine to cover 60 million people. Controlling the spread of the disease after an attack would not necessarily involve vaccinating the entire population. But 30 million doses would be sufficient to concentrate vaccination on the centres of infection.

The threat at present is hypothetical. Smallpox was eradicated in 1977, and supplies of the virus are supposed to be retained for research purposes in only two tightly guarded laboratories, one in America and the other in Russia.

But there is evidence that the former Soviet Union continued to develop smallpox as a weapon. It is feared that supplies of the virus may have been passed to Iraq, in which case they could be in the hands of terrorists.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-265175,00.html