Boy Improves After Vaccine-Related Infection

The condition of a 2-year-old Indiana boy is improving after he contracted an infection from his father’s smallpox vaccination, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, March 19).

The child’s condition is expected to be moved from critical to serious, said John Easton, spokesman for the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital.

“Everyone has been a little bit astonished that he has recovered as well as he has,” Easton said.

Doctors used skin grafts, an experimental drug and other measures to save the boy, who suffered a rash that covered 80 percent of his body.  The rash appeared after the boy came into contact with his father, a U.S. Army soldier who received the vaccination prior to an anticipated deployment.

The boy has a history of eczema, a skin condition linked to eczema vaccinatum, which can be spurred by the smallpox vaccine (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 8).

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