Later this month, several thousand doses of the smallpox vaccine will be headed for Kansas as part of the federal government’s effort to respond to the threat of a possible smallpox attack by enemies of the United States.

“The federal government wants those on the front lines to be vaccinated first,” said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which has formulated the state’s smallpox vaccination plan.

“The indication from the federal government is that there is no intelligence information that we are at risk of smallpox, but we should be prepared. This is really seen as a protection effort,” Watson said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved Kansas’ plan of voluntary vaccinations, and the first round of vaccinations could start in late January.

Smallpox is a deadly disease that has been eradicated. The last known case was in 1977 in Somalia; the last reported case in the U.S. was in 1949. The virus has been kept alive as part of biological weapons programs in several countries.

In Kansas, the first to be vaccinated will be KDHE employees who will then go to eight clinics across the state to vaccinate health-care workers, including state and local health department employees and hospital employees. The sites of those clinics have not yet been announced.

A majority of Kansas hospitals have employees who have volunteered to be vaccinated, including some at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

“We are moving forward with plans and identifying groups of employees who would be appropriate to be part of a smallpox response team,” said Janet Wehrle, infection control practitioner at LMH.

¢Kansas Department of Health and Environment plans¢Centers for Disease Control report on smallpox vaccine

She said the CDC had recommended that about 50 people be vaccinated at a hospital the size of LMH.

She said the goal was to provide a team that could provide round-the-clock care for a smallpox victim for a 10-day period. “This group would be immune and could provide care for that person,” she said.

Later phases of the state’s plan call for the vaccine to be available to all health-care and emergency workers. The federal government is not recommending that members of the general public be vaccinated at this point, but it says it has enough of the vaccine stockpiled to vaccinate everyone who might need it in case of an emergency.

President Bush also has announced that the Department of Defense will take immediate steps to reinstitute the vaccination of certain military and civilian personnel deployed in high-threat areas.