Are we there yet? The smallpox research agenda using variola virus

Because of the advances made in the acquisition of knowledge to support diagnostics, antiviral, and vaccine research and development through to the regulatory review process, the majority opinions of those in these groups are now, in 2014, more supportive of discontinuing the use of live variola virus for future research studies. Work continues to develop protein-based diagnostic assays, which can allow more rapid "alerts" to any cases of possible smallpox disease. Because the latter assays are often done simply, similar to a urine pregnancy test, these could be critical to target attention to any potential areas of high-risk disease.