U.S. plans quarantine in case of smallpox
July 9, 2002
ASSOCIATED
PRESS
Atlanta, Ga. -Federal health officials are quietly making
plans for quarantining Americans who might be exposed to a highly
contagious smallpox patient, addressing sensitive questions in case of
a bioterror attack.
The planning, still in draft form, addresses
complex logistical and policy questions, including where people would
be kept while waiting for officials to confirm a smallpox case and, if
necessary, administer vaccinations.
"It's not pretty to think
through these type of doomsday scenarios, but it's important to start
to put yourself there and imagine things unfolding if you want to
anticipate how to react," said Dr. Marty Cetron, a quarantine expert at
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Within the next few
weeks, the plan will be circulated among top federal officials and
others involved in the preparation, said Cetron, who co-chairs a CDC
working group on the issue.
The group began with this scenario:
Officials get word that an international flight is headed for the
United States with an infected passenger aboard.
The vaccine is only
effective within four days of someone being exposed to smallpox, so if
people would leave that scene it would be difficult to find them in
time. Under the plan, officials would stress that people would be
better off staying in quarantine because that's where the vaccine and
other medications would be available.
Once planning is complete,
the CDC group plans to tackle more complicated situations, such as a
smallpox patient in a sports stadiurn or an infected person wandering
through an airport.
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980, but
samples of the deadly virus still exist.