In December 2018, a lab technician was injecting a mouse with the Vaccinia Virus (VACV) when she accidentally stuck her own finger with the needle. According to the CDC's case report, she immediately rinsed her finger with water for 15 minutes, notified her supervisors, then went to the emergency room.

Between days 2 and 9 post-infection, the patient was evaluated by two community physicians; neither advised her to observe contact precautions to prevent auto-inoculation or secondary transmission. (source)

It should probably be pointed out that this happened almost a year ago and yet this was just published by the CDC on October 25, 2019, in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

Secondly, the Vaccinia Virus is contagious – it can be spread through physical contact, and yet the technician was not told to observe "contact precautions", at least by the community physicians. While it is known that the tech's recovery took approximately 4 months, the focus of the published report (as indicated in the title itself) was of the "novel treatment" that was performed. Folks, these facts ought to make you a bit nervous.

Ten days after the infection the technician was evaluated at an occupational health clinic where the treating physician contacted the CDC, which advised monitoring her for evidence of worsening infection.

(image source: CDC)

Twelve days post-infection she was treated at a university-based ER for a fever, a general feeling of illness, pain, and worsening swelling of her finger. This means she was seen at two different facilities, and by at least three different doctors, possibly without taking precautions to prevent others from getting infected. I say 'possibly' because while she wasn't told to by supervisors, she may have taken precautions on her own. We can only hope.

The threat of Poxviruses

Contagious, often deadly, and naturally occurring (meaning it exists in nature), smallpox was considered eradicated around the globe by 1980. With the exception, of course, of the two labs that currently hold samples of the smallpox virus for research – although the one in Russia did have an explosion in September of this year. That being said, I sometimes wonder how long it will be before tight-lipped Russian authorities speak up if any smallpox was leaked out… But that's just my opinion.

According to the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, smallpox is caused by an agent referred to as the variola virus, also known as VARV, and strictly affects humans. Most researchers agree that the first reliable descriptions of smallpox were found in ancient Indian medical treatises that had been compiled by the 1st–4th centuries. It wasn't until 1796 that a vaccine was created by a man named Edward Jenner who had observed that milkmaids who previously had caught cowpox did not catch smallpox. While it's not the exact same vaccine we have today, according to the World Health Organization there is a physical stockpile of smallpox vaccines held at various locations around the world – just in case.

At this point, I have to say 'Hold on – not so fast there'. Smallpox is but one virus from the Pox family, known as Poxviruses (members of the Poxviridae family). Smallpox may be eradicated, but what about the others? Let me say, for clarity if nothing else, I'm not an epidemiologist. I have never done laboratory research on anything more than the odd creature in high school biology. But what I've read makes me nervous.