The chill is upright!
Mei Jing found several scattered "smallpox" frozen bottles
Smallpox is named for its characteristic pitting on the skin. In the long history of humans and viruses, this is one of the most terrible viruses that plagued humans.
It caused countless epidemics, and it is estimated that 300 million people died of it in the 20th century alone.
According to CNN, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on the 16th local time that several vials were found at the Merck factory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the words "smallpox" on them (smallpox is An extremely deadly virus that was eradicated in the 1970s).
But the CDC said there is no evidence that anyone has been exposed to this pathogen.
The terrible smallpox virus "spread out"?
Usually, the symptoms of smallpox start 12 to 14 days after exposure. High fever, severe headaches and back pain are only the first symptoms. Patients will then develop a blistering rash and scabs a few weeks later.
The frightening thing is that smallpox can easily spread from person to person through sneezing, coughing or even breathing, or through contact with the liquid in the scabs, rashes and blisters, or even just touching the patient's personal items.
But the virus was also the first virus to be defeated by vaccination.
In 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eliminated as a result of a coordinated global vaccination effort.
According to the data, before that, the virus infected 15 million people every year, and about 30% of those infected died.
The last known smallpox outbreak in the United States was in 1947; the last smallpox outbreak in the world occurred in 1978 in Birmingham, England. This time it was a laboratory accident, not a normal outbreak.
In view of the extremely lethality of smallpox, there are only two laboratories in the world that claim to be "highly safe" to store its samples.
One of them is at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, and the other is at the National Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, Russia.
This move is actually quite controversial.
As early as 1986, the World Health Organization proposed to destroy all variola virus samples. However, due to the firm opposition of the United States and Russia, the 2002 World Health Assembly agreed to temporarily store a small portion of the virus samples for scientific research purposes.
And for a long time, there have been voices in the scientific community that the smallpox virus is "scattered out" and may remain in other places that are not strictly monitored, and there is the possibility of accidental or intentional release.
The CDC said, "The impact of such incidents can be devastating."
"Looks" intact
This time, at a factory in Pennsylvania where a vaccine research was conducted, a laboratory worker accidentally found a frozen vial labeled "smallpox" while cleaning the refrigerator. The state Department of Health said a total of 15 problematic bottles were found. , 5 of them have "smallpox" on the label, and 10 have "cowpox" on the label.
The CDC, including its management partners and law enforcement agencies, is investigating the matter. A report cited a warning sent to the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security that the CDC subsequently transported the vials to another location for testing.
The contents of the vial "looked" intact, the CDC added.
"The laboratory worker who found the vial was wearing gloves and masks. We will provide more details in due course."
This is not the first time this kind of thing
A similar thing happened once in 2014.
According to CNN, employees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found six bottles of "smallpox" in the campus storage room.
At that time, employees were packing and moving in a laboratory. In a long-unused storage room, these six bottles of "smallpox" appeared.
According to reports, two of the vials contained real viruses.
The CDC also stated at the time that there was no evidence that anyone had been exposed to the virus.
So far, there is still some debate among governments about keeping virus samples or destroying all known copies.
Most routine vaccination was stopped in 1972, but military personnel and some researchers are still vaccinating.
Although many studies have shown that people who have been vaccinated should have a certain degree of lifelong immunity, the CDC still recommends that people who need long-term protection get a booster of smallpox every 3 to 5 years.