WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Advisers to the World Health Organization have pressed the body to allow a few scientists to genetically modify the smallpox virus to make it easier to study, a WHO spokesman said on Thursday.
It may take weeks or months for the WHO to decide on the emotive issue.
WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said an international panel of scientific advisers made the recommendation to the WHO last week. “The idea was to insert a fluorescent gene in the virus to help speed up screening,” Thompson said in a telephone interview.
“The panel ... thought that it was a good idea for several reasons. First it reduces the amount of time that lab workers have to be exposed to the virus,” he said. “Most important, it moves us closer to the day that we can destroy the remaining stock of smallpox.”
While smallpox was eradicated by a global vaccination program led by WHO in 1979, bioterrorism experts argued that several nations had tried to make smallpox into a weapon and that stocks may still exist outside the careful control of the WHO and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Therefore, work proceeds at a very few labs on a new and better smallpox vaccine. For instance, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases or USAMRIID works with smallpox virus at its top-security facility in Ft. Detrick, Maryland, and the CDC also has a specially equipped lab.
Researchers working with smallpox must work in Biosafety 4 labs, which have special controls to help ensure no one accidentally becomes infected. But experts agree that the less time spent working with such a dangerous virus, the better.
Thompson said WHO had made no decision on the recommendation and said it would undergo several levels of review. “This whole thing moves at a thoughtful pace,” he said.
MeSH Headings:Health Care Economics and Organizations: Genetic Engineering: Genetic Techniques: International Agencies: Investigative Techniques: Organizations: Physical Sciences: Research: Science: United Nations: World Health Organization: Analytical, Diagnostic and Therapeutic Techniques and Equipment: Health Care: Physical SciencesCopyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
