Why hasn't the smallpox virus been eradicated?

Recently, the Global Times reported that frozen bottles of "smallpox virus" were found in freezers of American pharmaceutical companies; and earlier this month, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, warned that in addition to naturally occurring epidemics, countries should also be prepared for "bioterrorism attacks." Everyone couldn't help but connect the two reports together, and the news about smallpox quickly became a hot search, becoming the focus of attention of people all over the world. Many netizens are questioning, hasn't the smallpox virus been extinct for a long time? Why does it still exist in the United States? Today, let's talk about this terrible smallpox virus. Why did it appear in American pharmaceutical companies?

01. The report was expected.

This report was expected. On June 4, 2021, the U.S. FDA approved Tembexa (brincidofovir) for adults and children with smallpox, including newborns. Tembexa received priority review, fast track and orphan drug designations.

02. Smallpox exists not only in laboratories but also among the people, and may even be artificially synthesized.

Many times, whether in textbooks or other popular science articles, we tell everyone that smallpox has been eradicated.

After all, as an infectious disease that has fought against humans for thousands of years and caused countless deaths, smallpox has left too many painful memories for mankind. With the help of modern science, especially the widespread use of vaccines, in 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been eradicated worldwide.

However, people who know a little more will tell you that although we have eradicated smallpox from the human population, in fact, we still preserve smallpox in laboratories. There are only two laboratories in the world authorized to preserve smallpox virus samples, namely Moscow, Russia and Atlanta, the United States (United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Soviet Union's (now Russia's) State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR).

However, this is only in theory. The reality is not like this.

03. Smallpox virus remains are constantly being discovered

In March 2004, smallpox remnants (scabs) were found in an envelope inside a yellowed medical book at the New Mexico State University library. The book was from the American Civil War era, when smallpox had not yet been eradicated.

On July 1, 2014, six sealed 1954 smallpox glass vials and sample vials of other pathogens were found in a cold room at the FDA-NIH laboratory in Bethesda, Maryland. This information had never been recorded.

The smallpox viruses were then transferred to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where they were found to be still active.

It can be said that we still don’t know how much smallpox remains in the world. Even some former laboratories may have kept smallpox, which was later completely forgotten due to poor management or personnel turnover.

These are all potential threats.

04. Monkey smallpox outbreak

In fact, there is not only human smallpox, but also animal smallpox, and these smallpox can also infect humans, such as monkey pox.

In 1996, monkey smallpox broke out in the Befar region, causing more than 500 people to become ill.

In 2002, monkey smallpox broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, infecting 30 people and killing 10.

05. Unstable US-Russia relationship

The World Health Organization recommends destroying the virus, but the United States and Russia refuse

In 1986, WHO first suggested that the United States and the Soviet Union destroy smallpox in their laboratories, but their proposal was rejected.

In 1993, the proposal to destroy it was again rejected.

In 1999, three recommendations were made and rejected.

Finally, in 2002, the World Health Assembly agreed to allow the temporary retention of virus stocks for specific research purposes.

In 2010, the WHO sent a team of experts to review the virus storage situation in the United States and Russia, and concluded that their storage of smallpox did not meet any basic public health purposes...

06. Artificial Ceiling

Today, with the rapid development of biological science and technology, we have mastered many technologies, but these technologies have also provided new channels for artificial synthesis of smallpox.

In 2017, a Canadian paper caused a lot of controversy because they synthesized an infectious smallpox virus.

The experiment was conducted because it is generally believed that the modern vaccinia virus (VACV) and the horsepox virus (HPXV) have a common ancestor and may even have originated from horses, but horse smallpox is now extinct.

So, they synthesized the smallpox genome (212kb) based on the sequence of variola equine and the sequence of human smallpox vaccine, and then let it infect cells to recombinantly form a chimeric variola virus (scHPXV).

This is the first time that humans have synthesized smallpox virus using synthetic biology.

We believe this is the first complete synthesis of a poxvirus using synthetic biology approaches

These smallpox are active. The picture below is the result of smallpox infected cell culture.

The virus can infect mice, but does not cause illness.

This means that we can synthesize smallpox at any time. In fact, according to the current gene synthesis method, commercial synthesis is very cheap, and it is not difficult to synthesize smallpox.

In summary, the discovery of smallpox virus by an American pharmaceutical company is not an accidental event. However, this incident has also sounded the alarm for us, and we hope that it can attract enough attention from relevant departments. After all, smallpox virus is not a joke!

refer to

Smallpox in 2004 https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-12-26-smallpox-in-envelope_x.htm

2014 Live smallpox virus https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jul/08/smallpox-vials-found-cardboard-box-maryland-laboratory

Monkey smallpox http://news.sohu.com/22/54/news203645422.shtml

Artificial smallpox https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5774680/