US FDA Approves First Smallpox Treatment to Protect Against Bioterrorism

In its announcement, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) explained that it had encouraged the development of a smallpox treatment because of the "risk of bioterrorism."

Variola virus, as it is known officially labeled eradicated by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1980, the last case having been diagnosed in 1977.

However, samples of the virus were kept for scientific purposes and there was concern that an accident, or an effort, could reintroduce smallpox to humans and cause significant loss of life.

The smallpox virus killed about 300 million people during the 20 centuries before extensive vaccination prevented it from spreading. a treatment without any case

Nobody who carried the virus to test his treatment, a spokesperson of SIGA Technologies explained to us how the treatment was born: "TPOXX was developed under the rule of The FDA's approval is based on the safety data of 12 oral TPOXX clinical trials in more than 700 healthy human volunteers, who showed no serious adverse events related to the drug.

"Four pivotal trials in non-human primates (NHPs) and two pivotal rabbit trials demonstrated that TPOXX significantly reduced mortality and viral load in monkeypox virus-infected NHPs and in rabbits infected with rabbitpox virus.

SIGA worked with several ministries to create the treatment, including Biomedical Advanced Research and Developed Authority (BARDA).

SIGA spokesperson commented that they "believe that TPOXX's approval is proof that public-private partnerships work when partners engage in mission-focused "