
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, November 20, 1993                   TAG: 9311200046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

RUSSIA UNDECIDED ON LAST SMALLPOX CULTURE

The Russian government has not yet decided whether to honor a 1990 Soviet-U.S. agreement to destroy the last known smallpox cultures in the world, a top scientist said Friday.

The former Soviet Union and the United States had agreed to destroy the cultures Dec. 31 in what would be the first deliberate extinction of a biological species.

However, Russia might keep its smallpox cultures for another two or three years of research, said Valentin Pokrovsky, president of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.

"I do not think the destruction of the last cultures will take place on Dec. 31," Pokrovsky said. "The question is still open."

Smallpox had been one of the great scourges throughout history. During the 16th through 18th centuries, the disease - characterized by fever, vomiting and skim eruptions - routinely killed up to 600,000 people a year in Europe.

By 1980, a worldwide inoculation effort eradicated the virus, but both the United States and the Soviet Union kept small batches in isolation laboratories. - Associated Press

by CNB