This article assesses the potential public health risks associated with an intentional release of the smallpox virus as a biological weapon. Although naturally occurring smallpox was eradicated decades ago, its high contagiousness, severe mortality, and waning population immunity mean a deliberate attack could trigger a global health catastrophe. However, we argued that proactive, peacetime mass vaccination carries greater overall risk than benefit due to the severe adverse events linked to traditional first- and second-generation vaccines. Instead, national preparedness should focus on developing clear emergency response plans, securing safer third-generation vaccines, and prioritizing targeted immunizations for essential frontline workers\u2014such as healthcare and emergency personnel\u2014in the event of a verified threat or active outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The deliberate or accidental release of smallpox was a dominant public health concern in the early 2000s amid global anxieties over bioterrorism. I co-authored this review with my supervisor, Prof. Andrzej Zieli\u0144ski, in connection with our participation in the Congress of the Polish Association of Epidemiologists and Infectiologists. It was a fascinating project, as it allowed me to review diverse modeling papers, outbreak scenarios, and epidemiological simulations\u2014exploring different risk assumptions with a healthy dose of imagination! \ud83d\ude42<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Article in Polish published in a supplement of the journal Przegl\u0105d Epidemiologiczny [Epidemiological Review]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1074,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true},"class_list":["post-1339","publikacje","type-publikacje","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacje\/1339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publikacje"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publikacje"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pawel.stefanoff.pl\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}