ID :
205667
Wed, 09/07/2011 - 05:51
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/205667
The shortlink copeid
Gov't stockpile of smallpox vaccines useless
SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Yonhap) -- More than 80 percent of smallpox vaccines the government has stockpiled to guard against possible bioterror attacks are either expired or unfit for human consumption, a government report showed Wednesday.
Of the total 7 million doses the government has bought since 2002, some 4.59 million doses, or 65.6 percent, have expired, while 1.06 million doses, or 15 percent, failed standard toxicity tests conducted in July, meaning they are too toxic to inoculate people, according to the report by the Korea Food & Drug Administration (KFDA).
Nearly one million tablets of antibiotics for use against the plague stored for emergencies have also expired, the report revealed.
The KFDA said it will ask the country's Center for Disease Control to discard all the obsolete vaccines and the antibiotics.
The South Korean government put smallpox on its official list of communicable diseases in 2002, as experts warned of the possibility that the virus could be used in bioterror attacks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. a year earlier.
According to a defense ministry report, North Korea is also believed to possess a dozen types of viruses and germs that it can readily use in the event of a conflict, and one of them is smallpox.
Of the total 7 million doses the government has bought since 2002, some 4.59 million doses, or 65.6 percent, have expired, while 1.06 million doses, or 15 percent, failed standard toxicity tests conducted in July, meaning they are too toxic to inoculate people, according to the report by the Korea Food & Drug Administration (KFDA).
Nearly one million tablets of antibiotics for use against the plague stored for emergencies have also expired, the report revealed.
The KFDA said it will ask the country's Center for Disease Control to discard all the obsolete vaccines and the antibiotics.
The South Korean government put smallpox on its official list of communicable diseases in 2002, as experts warned of the possibility that the virus could be used in bioterror attacks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. a year earlier.
According to a defense ministry report, North Korea is also believed to possess a dozen types of viruses and germs that it can readily use in the event of a conflict, and one of them is smallpox.
