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Outbreak: Plagues that changed HistorySeptember 27 – January 30, 2009
Organized by the Global Health Odyssey Museum; come see Byrn Barnard’s images of the symptoms and paths of the world’s deadliest diseases – and how the epidemics they spawned have changed history forever.
CDC’s Strategic National Stockpile Helps Save Lives
CDC’s Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) is designed to move life-saving medicines and supplies on a large scale in a short amount of time during public health emergencies. Its expertise in rapid deployment proved to be critical on a much smaller scale, when a family contracted an infection from smallpox vaccination.
On March 8, 2007, a doctor from the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital contacted CDC to request Vaccinia Immune Globulin (VIG) for a 2-year old child who had developed Eczema Vaccinatum (EV) after coming into contact with the site of an open smallpox vaccination on his father’s arm. The father had received the smallpox vaccination several weeks earlier as part of military deployment preparation. The toddler’s case was the first instance of EV in the United States in more than 19 years. The child’s mother also developed EV in the same manner.
CDC’s SNS provided logistical support that enabled rapid movement of VIG, which is stored as part of the SNS to treat persons who react adversely to a smallpox vaccination. CDC delivered the initial vials of VIG to staff at the hospital less than five hours after the request. SNS coordinated six trips and delivered 69 vials of VIG for this critical life-saving mission. By the end of April, both mother and child had been released from the hospital and CDC’s mission was officially closed.
