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Vials of smallpox virus found where they shouldn’t have been: CDC

WASHINGTON D.C. (Worthy News)-- The Centers for Disease Control announced Tuesday the surprise discovery of smallpox, in unused portions of an FDA lab.

The Centers for Disease Control announced Tuesday that government employees found old vials labeled “variola,” better known as smallpox, in an unused portion of an FDA lab in the Beltway area — a remarkable and unusual discovery because an international pact says smallpox samples may only be held at labs in Atlanta and Russia.

The National Institutes of Health reported the July 1 discovery to the appropriate division of the CDC. Employees found the vials in a storage room at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, while preparing to move the lab from the site to the FDA’s main campus.

Smallpox was eradicated last century after a worldwide vaccination program, with the last U.S. case occurring in 1949, according to the CDC. It is a “serious, contagious and sometimes fatal” infectious disease that produces extensive rash and fever.  -- Source