Row at WHO meet over future of smallpox virus samples

The World Health Organisation held a stormy discussion over the future of smallpox virus samples, which Russia and the US are seeking to preserve while others want them destroyed.

The question surrounding the destruction of the last official stocks of the deadly virus held by the US and Russian laboratories has been recurring at the WHO since 1986.

Washington and Moscow want the viruses kept for scientific reasons, saying that it is necessary to continue research on their vaccines in order to prevent any resurgence of the transmissible disease which was eradicated in 1979.

They fear in particular that countries may have secretly kept the virus to be used as a biological weapon.

In a draft resolution put forward Monday to the 193 WHO member states, Russia and the US once again sought to conserve the samples, and wanted to begin discussing a possible date for their destruction only in five years.

“We feel that we do not have sufficient guarantees on the efficiency and the preparation of the vaccines,” explained the Russian envoy.