First Cowpox Case in the U.S.

摘要

A student lab worker at the University of Illinois is the first person in the United States to catch cowpox, a less dangerous relative of smallpox. Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) traced the infection to a genetically modified cowpox virus strain stored in the lab's freezer. The student had never worked with the virus, which the lab had not studied for 5 years. After she came down with the disease in July 2010, however, tests found DNA from the strain (although no live virus) in various parts of the lab.