Vials of smallpox discovered in US govt storage room

[World News]

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Federal investigators are probing how vials of smallpox made their way into a storage room at a Food and Drug Administration lab near the US capital, health authorities said. Though there is no treatment for smallpox, it has been eradicated after a worldwide vaccination program. The vials were labeled "variola," another name for smallpox, and appear to date from the 1950s, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement. They were found in an unused portion of a storeroom in an FDA laboratory, located on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland.

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