By Clark Hansen, NMD

 Alternate Names: Variola, Smallpox

Organism: Variola virus

 Overview

 Smallpox is highly contagious, disfiguring and deadly. Vaccines are credited with eradicating the natural infection. The last vaccines were given in 1972. The last infection of smallpox was recorded in 1977. It is perhaps the most feared biological threat because it can be spread from person to person like the flu and there is no treatment. About 30% of the people who get the disease die. Currently the only confirmed sources of small pox are languishing in two laboratories, one in the U.S. and one in Russia. However, U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russians, Iraqis, and North Koreans have undisclosed stores of smallpox for weapons purposes. Russian Biopreparat defector, Ken Alibek acknowledged that the Soviets built up large stockpiles of smallpox in the 1980’s for use in bioweapons, and terrorism experts worry that some of these stockpiles may have been sold to rogue governments and terrorists around the world.

Smallpox begins with a high fever, fatigue, malaise, head and backache. A characteristic rash, most prominent on the face, arms, and legs, follows in 2-3 days. The rash starts with flat red lesions that evolve at the same rate into raised lesions (1-4 days), then vesicles or blisters (1-4 days) and finally become pus-filled (2-6 days). The pustules then rupture and begin to crust early in the second week yielding scabs that fall off after about 3-4 weeks leaving scars or “pox”. The majority of patients with smallpox recover, but death occurs in up to 30% of cases.

 Carriers

Smallpox is carried by airborne distribution like the common cold or flu virus. It can be transmitted through human-to-human contact by droplets spread when an infected individual breathes or coughs.

Biological Weapons Use

Smallpox has been made into an aerosolized powder that can be deployed as a biological weapon. If deployed in the air conditioning or ventilation system of a domed sports stadium it could expose 50,000 to 70,000 spectators within 3 hours. If deployed in a large international airport such as La Guardia or O’Hare it could easily spread around the entire world before it being detected. The former Soviet Union’s Biopreparat stockpiled large quantities of the powder (never less than twenty tons of weapons-grade dry smallpox was stockpiled in bunkers). According to Russian defector, Ken Alibek and others, it is possible that smallpox has left Russia for parts unknown, traveling in the pockets of mercenary biologists. “Iran, Iraq, probably Libya, probably Syria, and North Korea could have smallpox.”

 Toxicity

Smallpox is an extremely lethal virus, and it is highly contagious in the air. When a child with chicken pox appears in a school classroom, many or most of the children in the class may go on to catch chicken pox. Smallpox is as contagious as chicken pox. One case of smallpox can give rise to twenty new cases. Each of those cases can start twenty more. In Yugoslavia, in 1972, a man with a severe case of smallpox visited several hospitals before dying in an intensive-care unit. To stop the resulting outbreak, twenty thousand people went into isolation and Yugoslav health authorities had to vaccinate virtually the entire population of the country within three weeks. Smallpox can start the biological equivalent of a runaway chain reaction. About a third of the people who are infected with smallpox will die from it. The skin puffs up with blisters the size of hazelnuts, especially over the face. A severe case of smallpox can essentially burn the skin off one’s body.

Contagiousness

Smallpox is extremely contagious. It is spread from one person to another by infected saliva droplets that expose a susceptible person who comes into direct face-to-face contact with the ill person. The virus can also be spread through contaminated clothing, sheets, pillowcases or other bed linen. Persons with smallpox are most infectious late in the incubation period before any symptoms have appeared and during the first week of symptoms, because that is when the largest amount of virus is present in saliva. However, some risk of transmission lasts until all scabs have fallen off (about 4 weeks). One person with smallpox will typically infect twenty additional individuals before symptoms ever appear. This chain of contagiousness and replication can infect more than a million people in just a few short weeks.

Incubation

The incubation period is about 12 days, with a range of 7 to 17 days.

Symptoms

• fever
• severe headache
• backache, joint pains
• malaise
• fatigue, weakness, prostration
• rash on the skin, starting on the face and trunk and spreading outwards
• vomiting and diarrhea
• excessive bleeding

Signs and tests   

• low white blood cell count initially, that increases later in the disease
• low platelet count
• DIC panel can be positive in cases of hemorrhage
• virus can be seen by electron microscope and by culture
• antibodies turn positive soon after the infection is complete

Complications   

• bacterial infections at the skin at the sites of the lesions
• arthritis and bone infections
• pneumonia
• severe bleeding
• eye infections
• brain inflammation (encephalitis)
• death

Prognosis

The majority of patients with smallpox recover, but death occurs in up to 30% of cases.

Prevention

The key to prevention is a healthy immune system. Since it is known that 70% of the population recovers from Smallpox even if untreated, a healthy immune response is your best defense. To make certain that you keep your immune system at its peak, Dr. Hansen recommends the following:

• Take the oral homeopathic vaccine: Influenzinum 9C annually (This homeopathic medicine is a broad spectrum remedy that boosts immune responsiveness against flu-like symptoms such as fever, chills, headache, muscle pains, malaise, etc, which can be confused with the initial symptoms of the Smallpox)
• Take a high potency multi-vita/min (Dr. Hansen recommends Peak Advantage)
• Avoid processed sugar (100 grams of Sugar suppresses the immune system by 50% for 5 hours)
• Get a minimum of 7 ½ hours of sleep per night.
• If you develop flu symptoms take Flu Solution (this is a very effective homeopathic medicine for the initial phase of fever, headache, muscle aches, general malaise, etc.)
• If a Smallpox outbreak occurs anywhere in the world, or as an advance precaution, take Homeopathic Biological Defense S: 1 tablet once per week for 4 weeks.
• For an exposure to Smallpox without symptoms: Take Homeopathic Biological Defense S: 1 tablet once daily for 21 days as a precaution.

Vaccines

Vaccination against Smallpox is not recommended to prevent the disease in the general public. It is associated with some risk for adverse reactions; the two most serious include severe brain swelling (encephalitis), which occurs in approximately one out of every 300,000 vaccine recipients, is fatal in 40% of the cases, and causes permanent neurological damage in others. Routine vaccination against smallpox ended in 1972. The level of immunity, if any, among persons who were vaccinated before 1972 is uncertain at best, but it is presumed that these persons are now susceptible since vaccine immunity is not permanent and wears off within 1-2 decades.

At the present time the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it has only a very limited emergency supply (15.4 million doses) of smallpox vaccine. The vaccine is owned by the federal government and is managed by Wyeth-Ayerst, which is the company that made it, twenty-five to thirty years ago. It is stored in glass vials. The vials contain freeze-dried nuggets of live vaccinia virus. Vaccinia is a virus that causes symptoms similar to but milder than smallpox. When you are infected with it by vaccination, it causes a pustule to appear, and stimulates temporary immunity to smallpox that may last anywhere from 3 to 20 years.

The government is testing that supply and believes that it can dilute the vaccine to make 77 million effective doses. The government has ordered an additional 209 million vaccine doses to bring the total to 286 million doses, enough to vaccinate every man woman and child in the U.S. The vaccine is scheduled to be delivered in the fall of 2002, but the manufacturer will not be able to submit the vaccine to the FDA for approval until mid 2003.

Treatment

There is no proven treatment for smallpox but research to evaluate new antiviral agents is ongoing. Patients with smallpox can benefit from supportive therapy (intravenous fluids, medicine to control fever or pain, etc.) and antibiotics for any secondary bacterial infections that occur. In people exposed to smallpox, the smallpox vaccine can lessen the severity of, or even prevent illness if given within 4 days after exposure.

Additionally, Dr. Hansen recommends taking Homeopathic Biological Defense S: 1 tablet 4 times daily, every 4 hours. (Note: For an exposure without confirmed infection: Dr. Hansen recommends taking Homeopathic Biological Defense S: 1 tablet once daily for 21 days as a precaution.)

Homeopathic Biological Defenses

Homeopathic medicines are natural, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that work via amplification of the body’s own healing response. Homeopathic medicines have been used to treat the symptoms of Smallpox for more than 100 years. Variolinum 30C is key homeopathic ingredient. It is made from the smallpox pustule. It is homeopathically diluted beyond the point of which any actual viral organisms are present in the final preparation.

Homeopathic Biological Defense Remedy Indications

Variolinum

• “Used for internal vaccination. Seems to be efficacious in protecting against, modifying and aiding in the cure of smallpox”
• Headache
• High Fever, Profuse Perspiration
• Skin Eruption of Pustules
• Excruciating backache
• Aching in legs
• Tired all over with restlessness
• Oppressed breathing
• Cough
• Expectoration of thick bloody mucous

Sarracenia purpurea

• A remedy for Variola, aborts the disease, arrests pustulation
• Congestion of head; sick headache
• Photophobia
• Vomiting
• Backache
• Weakness of limbs
• Bruised pains

Thuja occidentalis 9C

• Variola, aborts the pustule and prevents the suppurating fever
• Headache
• Heat in face with burning redness
• Pustules-Smallpox- eruptions burn violently after scratching
• Boenninghausen “found Thuja both preventive and curative in an epidemic of smallpox

Antimonium tartaricum

• Smallpox
• Headache
• Nausea, retching and vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Cough with great rattling of mucus
• Difficulty breathing
• Edema and impending paralysis of lungs
• Pustular eruption, leaving a bluish-red mark
• Fever with intense heat
• Copious perspiration
• Lethargy, great drowsiness, faintness

Rhus toxicodendron

• Headache
• Diarrhea of blood, slime, and reddish mucous
• Backache
• Joint pains
• Fever, Adynamic
• Skin red, swollen, vesicles, pustules
• Glands swollen

Lachesis

• Headache
• Fever with hot flushes and hot perspiration yet feet icy cold
• Profound prostration
• Bluish, purplish skin
• Boils, carbuncles, ulcers
• Dark blisters, blue-black swellings
• Easy bleeding