LONDON — Smallpox, one of the world’s deadliest diseases, eradicated three decades ago, is kept alive under tight security today in just two places — the United States and Russia.
Many other countries say the world would be safer if those stockpiles of the virus were destroyed.
Now for the fifth time, at a World Health Organization meeting next week, they will push again for the virus’ destruction. And again it seems likely their efforts will be futile.
U.S. and Russian government officials say it is essential they keep some smallpox alive in case a future biological threat demands more tests with the virus. They also say the virus samples are needed to develop experimental vaccines and drugs.
It was in 1996 that WHO’s member countries first agreed smallpox should be destroyed.
But they have repeatedly delayed a demand for destruction so that scientists could develop safer smallpox vaccines and drugs. That has now largely been done: There are two vaccines, a third in the works, and there are experimental drugs being developed for treating it, but not curing it.
Yet even if most of WHO’s member countries vote to set a new date for destruction, the agency doesn’t have the power to enforce the decision.
The scientific community remains divided over whether the smallpox samples should be destroyed. The respected journal Nature editorialized against it earlier this year, arguing that scientists need the ability to do further research, and perhaps develop new vaccines and treatments in an era of possible biological attack.
However, one of the most prominent figures in wiping out the deadly, disfiguring disease is in favor of destroying all remnants of it.
“It would be an excellent idea to destroy the smallpox viruses,” said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led WHO’s eradication effort in the 1970s. “This is an organism to be greatly feared.”
He said possession of smallpox by those not authorized to have it should be made a crime against humanity and that international authorities should prosecute any country found with it.
Dr. Nils Daulaire, director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Global Affairs, said the U.S. will again ask WHO to postpone a decision calling for the stockpile’s destruction.
He said U.S. scientists need more time to finish research into how well new vaccines and drugs work against the virus. But he acknowledged U.S. officials also want their own supply in case terrorists unleash smallpox as a biological weapon and additional study is needed.
A scientist at the Russian laboratory where smallpox is kept, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the virus should be kept in case similar ones pop up in the future and more studies are needed.
