Smallpox Destruction Delayed Again

The World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the 192-member World Health Organization, has failed once again to agree on a date for destroying the remaining stocks of smallpox virus held by the U.S. and Russia. Instead, at the end of its annual meeting on May 27, the assembly sent a draft resolution for consideration by WHO’s executive board at its meeting in January 2007, according to a WHO release.

Smallpox was considered eradicated in 1980. Stocks of smallpox strains held by many countries around the globe were deposited with U.S. and Russian labs in the late 1970s and early 1980s. U.S.-held stocks are secured at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention in Atlanta.

The official repository stocks in the U.S. and Russia were scheduled to be destroyed in 2002, but the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, intervened. The decision to destroy the stocks was put off, but was to be reviewed annually by the assembly.

At this latest review, many developing countries advocated a firm date for destruction of the virus and a ban on further genetic engineering experiments with the virus, according to Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, an international nonprofit organization that works against the hostile use of biotechnology. The developing countries argued that security and safety concerns called for the virus’s elimination, not expanded research. These nations also supported tighter WHO controls and oversight of the remaining viral stocks and the types of research to be conducted with the virus.

Russia and the U.S. opposed most of those proposals, especially the fixed destruction date of June 30, 2010, suggested by the developing countries, Hammond noted. Both countries advocated maintenance of the stocks for research purposes to counter potential disease threats linked to bioterrorism. The U.S., however, did accept the need for some reforms of the WHO advisory panel responsible for oversight of the stocks and research.

If WHO’s executive board approves the assembly’s proposed draft resolution, which includes the June 2010 destruction date, it would then be put before the assembly’s next meeting in May-June 2007.