when do you get vaccinated for smallpox?

Question

ok, so bassicaly im overreacting to something i saw on the internet about small pox, and eventhough i have none of the symptoms, im just wondering when you get vaccinated. for example, would you get vaccinated at standard annual physical??

Answer 1

Smallpox vaccinations are not currently available to the general public. General vaccination stopped in 1972. Only a few researchers are currently vaccinated.

Don't be too worried. While it is an awful disease and it is infectious, it's only communicable when someone is symptomatic - when they actually have to pox sores on their skin. It's not like the flu or a cold, where you're spreading it before anyone can tell you have it.

AND - the US has enough doses of the vaccine stockpiled for everyone in the country.

The reason we don't give it to people generally is 1) the disease no longer exists outside laboratories and 2) the vaccine is pretty crude. About 1 out of 1000 people have a pretty serious reaction to it. If we gave it to all 300 million people in the US tomorrow, about 300,000 of them would become seriously ill, and about 300-600 would die. So we're only going to give it out if there really is an outbreak.

Answer 2

Routine vaccination for small pox is no longer done, they stopped in 1972.
If you are in the military: before you are deployed overseas.
If you are a "first responder" (police, firefighter, ER personnel, etc): immediately when an out break occurs in your city.
If you are a health care worker in a hospital that will be taking patients that have small pox: after the first responders are vaccinated, or if you are exposed
For the General public: the general public will be vaccinated when an out break occurs in their city. Starting first with the people who were directly exposed (I remember from nursing school that you have several days after exposure to get the vaccination, but can't find the info the huge mass of info that is out there)

Answer 3

You don't get vaccinated for small pox anymore, unless you are in the military getting ready to deploy. It's officially a dead disease, and there is very little of the vaccine produced. For the most part, you don't have to worry about getting it. It hasn't occured in most developed countries in decades, and the US quite routine vaccinations in the early 1970's.

Answer 4

regrettably there remains a probability from smallpox on the topic of using organic and organic weapons. defense force workers may be the 1st responders to a virulent disease in case you would be able to take place and could be immune, as could many civilian scientific medical doctors and nurses. I gained a small pox vaccine whilst i began my nurses practise years in the past besides the incontrovertible fact that it became supposedly eradicated on the time.

Answer 5

You don't. The only smallpox existing in the world to day is in closely guarded laboratories.

Answer 6

ask your doctor, go to medical facility, most medical staff and troop that deploy to iraq need to vaccinated smallpox.

Answer 7

i don't think we vaccinate on smallpox anymore b/c it has been eradicated from earth, so if it comes back into the world, we are screwed b/c there is not enough vaccination for many people due to the fact it doesn't exist anymore.

Answer 8

They do not vaccinate for small pox any longer. The disease has been eliminated the way polio was.

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/prep/cdc-prep.asp

Answer 9

I got mine as a kid. Go to www.webmd.com and ask the same question.