The FDA has just approved a drug to treat smallpox in case of a bioterrorist attack – here's why this scenario is so scary

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  • The FDA has just approved a drug that could be used to treat smallpox.
  • The disease was officially eradicated in 1980, but the authors fear that people could recreate smallpox and use it as a biological weapon.
  • Infectious disease researchers and bioterrorism experts claim that the world is not prepared for the emergence or release of a pandemic.

On the list of the most devastating diseases humanity has ever faced, smallpox

The contagious and potentially fatal disease is caused by variola virus. It killed about 300 million people before mbad vaccination campaigns made smallpox the first infectious disease to be eradicated from nature in 1980.

But that does not mean it's gone for good.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on July 13 that it had for the first time approved a drug capable of treating smallpox if it was ever released as a weapon in a terrorist attack. The drug is called TPOXX (tecovirimat).

"To counter the risk of bioterrorism, Congress has taken steps to allow the development and approval of countermeasures to counteract the pathogens that could be used as weapons," said the commissioner. FDA Scott Gottlieb in a statement. "Today's approval is an important milestone in these efforts and this new treatment offers us an additional option if smallpox is used as a biological weapon."

Potential release of smallpox as a weapon is a very worrying scenario; Many experts believe that a form of armed disease is one of the biggest risks facing humanity

5 PHOTOS

Bioterrorist attacks

Gallery view [19659015] SALISBURY, ENGLAND – JULY 06: Emergency workers in protection suitable for research around John Baker's Sanctuary Sanctuary Supported Living after a major incident was declared when a man and a woman have were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent on 6 July 2018 in Salisbury, England. The couple, locally known as Dawn Sturgess 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, were taken to Salisbury District Hospital on Saturday and remained in critical condition. In March, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were poisoned with Russian-made Novichok in the city of Salisbury. British Prime Minister Theresa May accused Russia of being behind the attack of the former spy and her daughter, expelling 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation. (Photo by Jack Taylor / Getty Images)

DAMASCUS, SYRIA – APRIL 8 A child receives medical treatment after Assad regime forces allegedly carried out an attack on the city of Douala from eastern Ghouta in Damascus in Syria, April 8, 2018. At least 78 civilians, including women and children, were killed. (Photo: Mouneb Taim / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images)

Sierra Leonean doctor Donald Samuel Grant (R), accompanied by Vanessa Raabe, a medical student, attends a patient in the isolation ward of the Lbada fever at Kenema Goverment Hospital in southeastern Sierra Leone, February 7, 2011. Lbada fever, named after the Nigerian city where it was identified in 1969, is part of the US "Clbad A" diseases – likely to have a major impact on public health – alongside anthrax and botulism. The disease is carried by a rodent species, Mastomys Natalensis, present throughout sub-Saharan Africa and often consumed as a source of protein. It infects about 300,000 to 500,000 people each year and kills about 5,000 people. Photo taken on February 7, 2011. Corresponding to Reuters-Feature BIOTERROR-AFRICA / REUTERS / Simon Akam (SIERRA LEONE – Tags: HEALTH SOCIETY)

Individual handrails on a bench covered with a protective tent at The Mall Maltings at Salisbury, in southern England, on March 16, 2018, while investigations and operations continue in connection with the major incident caused by the poisoning of a man and a woman during a nerve agent attack in Salisbury on March 4.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on 16 March that the alliance did not want a return to Cold War hostilities with Russia, while expressing support for Britain's position on the Cold War. attacking neurotoxic agents. / AFP PHOTO / Ben STANSALL (Photo credit should read BEN STANSALL / AFP / Getty Images)

TOPSHOT – Photo taken on June 12, 2018 shows police officers of a special unit wearing protective clothing and Respiratory masks during an operation in Chorweiler in Cologne district, in western Germany, where police found toxic substances after the badault of one. apartment. – A Tunisian arrested in Germany is suspected of attempting to fabricate a biological weapon with the help of deadly poison, prosecutors said on June 14, 2018, noting however that there is no had no indication of "concrete plan of attack". (Photo by David Young / dpa / AFP) / Germany OUT (Photo credit should read DAVID YOUNG / AFP / Getty Images)




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The world is not ready for this possibility, nor is it ready to react to a naturally occurring pandemic? This means that it is plausible that some kind of deadly pathogen – probably a virus – can spread all over the world.

As Bill Gates said at a recent conference, the world's governments are ill prepared for this kind of scenarios

. In the case of biological threats, this sense of urgency is lacking, "said Mr. Gates. "The world must prepare for pandemics in the same way that it is preparing for war."

The return of smallpox

There are good reasons to be concerned about a possible release of smallpox. Only two laboratories in the world are allowed to possess variola virus: the CDC in Atlanta, and the State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology in Russia.

But more samples of the virus may be there. In 2014, vials containing smallpox were found in a cold room of an FDA laboratory on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The possibility of an accidental release of this kind of forgotten sample is distant but real

More disturbing is the fact that researchers think it would not be difficult for a malicious actor to create a version of the smallpox virus – even a more dangerous one – in a laboratory

Now that smallpox has been "eradicated", most people are no longer getting a vaccine, which means that the vast majority of the world would be vulnerable to an epidemic.

6 PHOTOS

History of Smallpox

See Gallery

(Original Caption) 1941: The capillary tubes of smallpox vaccine are here sealed by flames. Sterile needles in glbad tubes accompany each vaccination equipment. Smallpox is now fortunately rare in the United States – largely thanks to the prevention and work of health arsenals. By-Line Pictures, for release 7/27/41

(Original caption) Ali Maow Maalin, of Merka, Somalia, who has the last recorded case of smallpox in the world.

(Original caption) The colossal task India. At the end of 1962, India launched the largest national campaign to eradicate smallpox. Huge amounts of freeze-dried smallpox vaccine, the most stable vaccine in tropical conditions, are needed for the mbad campaign. The countries producing this vaccine help India to supply, but local production has had to be launched to meet national needs. At the Royal Institute of Preventive Medicine in Madras, with the help of WHO and UNICEF, a freeze-dried smallpox vaccine is prepared from a virus grown on the skin of calves. This photo shows a child struck by smallpox at the Madras Infectious Disease Hospital

(Original Caption) 10/1/1939- Visalia, California: Dr., FH Redwell and Mrs. Clarise Tucker, Nurse of the Department of Infectious Diseases State of public health, immunizing a family of squatters against smallpox and typhoid fever. The back of the break serves as a shelf for medical equipment.

The face of a boy is marked by the marks of smallpox. Afghanistan, ca. 1970. (Photo by Paul Almasy / Corbis / VCG through Getty Images)

Birmingham Smallpox outbreak 1978. Janet Parker a British medical photographer became the last person to die of smallpox. She was accidentally exposed to a strain that was grown in a research lab on the lower floor at the University of Birmingham Medical School. On the picture. Dr. John Makuena (spelling tbc) vaccinated against members of the public, including Bill Clayton (pictured) at the Department of Immunization of the Public Health Department Clinic at Congreve Street, Birmingham, August 25, 1978. (Photo by Birmingham Post and Mail Archive / Mirrorpix / Getty Images) [19659042] HIDE CAPTION

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The Department of Defense recently commissioned a report on the National Academy's biological weapons defense science, engineering and medicine. The report, released in June, said that recreating pathogenic viruses known as smallpox using synthetic biology techniques should be "the biggest concern" for the United States.

"The US government should pay special attention to this" Michael Imperiale, professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Michigan and chairman of the committee that drafted the report, said in a statement

Last year, a Canadian researcher studying synthetic biology demonstrated that it was possible to create smallpox-related pox viruses from scratch using genetic material purchased by the community. post

. biochemical knowledge or skills, significant funds or considerable time, "according to a report from the World Health Organization.

Other Dangerous Diseases

Smallpox is far from the only disease that, according to researchers, could lead to a pandemic.

Experts believe that if a flu like the 1918 version were to reappear, it could kill 30 million people within six months. Even more frightening flus are also possible: in ongoing studies in 2014 that resumed last year, scientists have shown how to make the flu virus more deadly. They have also shown that the most lethal viruses can be manipulated to become more infectious.

Experts from the CDC and the World Health Organization keep lists of the diseases most likely to cause a deadly pandemic. These lists include a number of natural pathogens, some of which could be transformed into biological weapons, such as Ebola, Marburg, SARS, anthrax, botulism, plague, tularaemia and smallpox.

Experts also did simulations to see how world would respond to the intentional release of a pandemic disease. The general consensus was that humanity was not doing well.

In May, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security did a simulation demonstrating what could happen if a marginal group were to release a modified Nipah disease. An unrecognized Nipah virus outbreak in India in May sickened at least 18 people and killed 17 infected people.

In the Johns Hopkins simulation, the modified virus killed more than 150 million people in the space of one year

WATCH: Astronomers have discovered 12 new moons around Jupiter [19659006] See also:

SEE ALSO: Bill Gates thinks an upcoming illness could kill 30 million people in 6 months – and says we should be getting ready for the war

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