American Scientists Urge WHO to Defer Destruction of Smallpox Virus

American scientists have requested the World Health Organization (WHO) to postpone the destruction of the last remaining strains of small pox virus.

Smallpox is a contagious diseases caused by Variola virus. The disease was eradicated in 1980, since then the only two live virus strains are found in tight security research centers in Russia and the U.S.

While the WHO officials are thinking of eliminating the only living stock of the virus, experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention argue against this decision. They have asked the agency to keep the virus alive so that it would help them in further researches to  develop better antiviral drugs in case of the disease recurrence in future, reports the Fox News.

"There is more work to be done before the international community can be confident that it possesses sufficient protection against any future smallpox threats", said the CDC researchers Inger Damon, Grant McFadden and Clarissa Damaso in their analysis published in the journal PloS Pathogens.

From past 30 years the WHO has been deferring its agenda to destroy the Variola strain to prevent misuse of the virus as a bio-weapon and mass outbreak across nations. However, the authorities fear recent scientific developments can aid the possibility of re-creating the deadly virus.

"The synthetic biology adds a new wrinkle to it," Jimmy Kolker, Health and Human Services assistant secretary for global affairs, told The Associated Press. "We now aren't as sure that our countermeasures are going to be as effective as we'd thought even five years ago," reports the ABC News.

Two years ago the WHO authorities investigated small pox researches and found no reason to keep the virus alive when scientists are already aware of its genetic make-up.

"Let's destroy the virus and be done with it," said D.A Henderson who led WHO's global eradication campaign, ABC news reports. "We would be better off spending our money in better ways like protection against anthrax and other bio- weapons."

"This isn't something that should drag on forever, and the U.S. doesn't want it to drag on forever," Kolker said. "We can't just ignore it," ABC News reports.