"In July 2018, the Food and Drug Administration approved tecovirimat, the first drug approved for treatment of smallpox" even though "the global eradication of smallpox was certified by the World Health Assembly on 8 May 1980" could a doctor please explain in what universe this makes sense?
Smallpox is still retained in government labs in the US and Russia, and its genetic information is available and could allow for its synthesis from scratch. The fear is that a bad actor could create and/or set it loose as a bioweapon.
Biotech companies can create vaccines for new diseases within hours of receiving the source code. Why would pharma pay billions of dollars to get a treatment approved for an old disease zero people have?
The rarer the disease the easier it is to get approved. Once approved you can tell doctors can use it for anything, and you can tell doctors what else it "might" work for. Doctors can then buy it for those other things, which they might do. You are supposed to study the other things, but that takes time and a lot more money (to be kind)
Note, the above is an over simplification, good enough for discussion, but not for any other use. Those who the above is useful information for already know many finer details of the above, and how it varies from country to country.
Because it is a disease which has been weaponized by the United States, United Kingdom and former Soviet Union at a minimum.
Not only do diseases escape containment (there was a weaponized Smallpox outbreak in 1971 in the USSR, and Lyme disease is believed to have originated from Plum Island, 2 miles off of Long Island), but there’s a nonzero probability that you’ll have a planned release someday.
I'm not a doctor, but from the looks of the wiki[0], it can be used for other viruses in the pox family. Also, smallpox is considered a major threat for bio-warfare, as multiple nations have it in deep storage. That's why the military is still vaccinated against it.
