Virginia launched its defense against bioterrorism on Wednesday, vaccinating five Charlottesville area health care workers for smallpox.
Four staff members at the Charlottesville Health Department and one University Medical Center doctor were the first people immunized against smallpox in the Commonwealth after 10,000 doses of the vaccine arrived at the Virginia Department of Health Jan. 28.
"We were ready to go, everyone's been planning this for a while," Charlottesville Health Department, Director Susan McLeod said.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention provided the vaccines as the first stage of a nationwide plan to prepare for bioterrorist attacks, which requires frontline medical workers at hospitals across the country to be vaccinated for smallpox.
"The major thing is to have the capacity to take care of a smallpox patient round-the-clock while other people are vaccinated," in case of an emergency situation, McLeod said.
Officials said these were only the first of about 100 vaccines they hope to distribute in order to establish a response team that would have sole contact with a smallpox patient. They currently are compiling a list of health care workers who might make up that response team.
"I suspect [the Health Department] is going to offer the vaccine several times over the next few weeks," Director of Student Health Jim Turner said. "We'd hope people would step up and get the vaccines."
William Petri, chief of the division of infectious diseases and international health at the University hospital, emphasized the importance of the first stage of vaccinations.
"Vaccinating health care workers against smallpox is the best thing to do," he said.
Estimates show that, without any immunizations, three to four health care workers would be infected for every smallpox victim treated at a hospital, Petri said. Since medical staff are at a higher risk of contracting the virus, there is a greater incentive to offer them the vaccine.
Beginning immunizations now also gives health personnel experience in vaccinating "rather than having to suddenly be immunizing thousands and thousands of people in Charlottesville" if there is a biological attack, he added.
Some hospitals, however, including Virginia Commonwealth University, declined to offer immunizations to their employees.
"This, frankly, is a controversial topic," Turner said.
There is concern that immunized health care workers might transmit the live vaccinia virus contained in the vaccine to patients with weakened immune systems.
The health department and the hospital are safeguarding against this concern, Petri said. The virus only can be transmitted through the skin at the place of vaccination, so immunized health care workers will wear a bandage and a special long-sleeved hospital scrub for about two weeks.
The CDC estimated that between 14-52 people per one million people vaccinated for the first time would have life threatening reactions including severe skin infections and inflammation of the brain.
There also are infectious disease specialists on-call 24 hours a day in case health care workers have a reaction to the vaccine, Petri added.
Virginia Department of Health Spokeswoman Trina Lee said the Charlottesville area was the first to request the vaccines, but other Virginia localities soon will follow suit.
"There's no rush," Lee said. "This will kind of play out over the next several weeks."
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