Pressroom

Source: Global Security Newswire

By: Barnes, Diane

04/09/2012

The White House plans to make unused federal stocks of anthrax vaccine available to certain nonmilitary emergency personnel in a trial program. Select first responders at the state and local level will have the option to receive a federally funded course of anthrax vaccination doses, according to senior medical officials with the Homeland Security Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices helped clear the way for the pilot program in 2010 by recommending that emergency personnel have the option to obtain anthrax vaccine voluntarily if they are “engaged in response activities that might lead to exposure” to the bacteria through the air. Officials did not indicate when the program would launch or how much vaccine would be made available. A standard vaccination regimen would involve five shots over 18 months and yearly boosters to confer and sustain immunity, and the trial would roughly follow the duration of the initial 18-month “priming series.”