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http://www.naplesnews.com/02/12/florida/d777963a.htm

State health officials unsure of how to pay for smallpox vaccination plan

Thursday, December 26, 2002

Associated Press

MIAMI — Florida's plan to inoculate thousands of health and safety workers against smallpox could leave other state counterterrorism programs underfunded, despite a $40 million federal grant to prepare for bioterrorism attacks, state officials said.

The grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will pay for the first phase of the state's smallpox plan, scheduled to start Jan. 24 with the vaccination of 35,000 hospital employees and health officials.

But officials had already budgeted that funding for other readiness projects, such as enhanced surveillance of bioterrorism threats, improved laboratory facilities and improved data systems to track vaccinations and increase communications between agencies should an attack occur.

Florida Department of Health officials were studying which programs to cut or postpone to be able to pay for the vaccinations, but no decision had been made as of Tuesday, spokesman Rob Hayes said.

More uncertainty surrounds the project's second phase, when 400,000 police officers, firefighters and emergency technicians will be inoculated during three months in spring 2003. Hayes said he has received "indications" that part will also be federally funded. But specifics — such as the price and funding source — are unclear at this point, he added.

The state program's third phase — providing a vaccination to any Floridian who wants it in 2004 — would also likely be federally funded, Hayes said.

The CDC referred calls Tuesday to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is funding bioterrorism efforts across the country. A phone at the department's media office in Washington rang unanswered Wednesday.

President Bush announced a nationwide smallpox vaccination effort earlier this month. Shots will be voluntary for everyone except about a half-million U.S. troops in "high-risk parts of the world." The federal government is not currently recommending vaccination for the general public.

Although the Bush administration has repeatedly denied any specific knowledge of a planned smallpox attack, Iraq and North Korea are believed to have access to the deadly virus, which was eradicated in 1980.

Experts estimate that 15 out of every 1 million people vaccinated for the first time will face life-threatening complications, and one or two will die. Reactions are less common for those being revaccinated.

Typical side effects from the vaccine, which is made with a live virus, include sore arms, fever and swollen glands.

The most common serious reaction comes when the vaccine escapes from the inoculation site, often because people touch the site and then touch themselves or someone else. The virus transferred to the eye can cause blindness.

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