WHO Debates Fate Of Smallpox Vials In US, Russia - KMBZ
▻http://www.kmbz.com/WHO-Debates-Fate-of-Smallpox-Vials-in-US-Russia/18944274
The World Health Organization is set to vote on whether to destroy stockpiles of the smallpox virus in the only two countries that still have them — the United States and Russia.
The frozen viruses went to the countries’ top labs between 1979 and the early 1980s during the height of the cold war. Although WHO had just officially declared smallpox eradicated, a few samples of the frozen virus were still needed for research.
But now that smallpox is so far behind us that children aren’t even vaccinated for it anymore, WHO will decide what to do with remaining virus stockpiles.
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The World Health Assembly will convene in Geneva, Switzerland to decide the fate of the remaining virus in late May.