Risks and Benefits of Preexposure and Postexposure Smallpox Vaccination1

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Meltzer, Martin I.
• Description:
  This article presents a model and decision criteria for evaluating a person's risk of pre- or postexposure smallpox vaccination in light of serious vaccine-related adverse events (death, postvaccine encephalitis and progressive vaccinia). Even at a 1-in-10 risk of 1,000 initial smallpox cases, a person in a population of 280 million has a greater risk for serious vaccine-related adverse events than a risk for smallpox. For a healthcare worker to accept preexposure vaccination, the risk for contact with an infectious smallpox case-patient must be >1 in 100, and the probability of 1,000 initial cases must be >1 in 1,000. A member of an investigation team would accept preexposure vaccination if his or her anticipated risk of contact is 1 in 2.5 and the risk of attack is assumed to be >1 in 16,000. The only circumstances in which postexposure vaccination would not be accepted are the following: if vaccine efficacy were <1%, the risk of transmission were <1%, and (simultaneously) the risk for serious vaccine-related adverse events were >1 in 5,000.
• Subjects:
  Attitude To Health Humans Logistic Models Perspective Risk Assessment Smallpox Smallpox Vaccine
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 9(11):1363-1370.
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  United States
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  9
• Issue:
  11
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:bfdddce4f48be264210ba319468e530045ae93556a00bfce8c69ecf1dd025ed7
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/3155/cdc_3155_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 700.34 KB ]