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Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffNo cure for smallpox exists. The smallpox vaccine can prevent or lessen the severity of the disease for some people if given within four days of infection. But vaccination doesn't help once signs and symptoms develop. For now, the best that doctors can offer people with symptomatic smallpox is supportive therapy and antibiotics to treat secondary bacterial infections.
Apart from immediate vaccination, isolation of the infected person is the only way to manage the disease. Unfortunately, isolation can only contain the spread of the virus, not eradicate it.
Because of the bioterrorism threat, new treatments are under investigation. One of these, cidofovir, has shown promise in laboratory studies.
- Smallpox. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Hildreth C. Smallpox. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2009;301:1086.
- Friedman HM, et al. Smallpox. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Smallpox. World Health Organization. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/smallpox/en/. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Taub D, et al. Immunity from smallpox vaccine persists for decades: A longitudinal study. The American Journal of Medicine. 2008;121:1058.
- Rotz L, et al. Smallpox and bioterrorism. In Mandell, Bennett, & Dolin: Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier; 2005. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/143878763-2/0/1259/0.html. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Varicella disease questions & answers. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/varicella/dis-faqs-gen.htm. Accessed June 18, 2009.
