Since the last case of smallpox occurred in 1977 (in Somalia), it is uncertain
what the routes of transmission would be now, 25 years on.  In the decade prior to
its eradication, smallpox was confined to a number of areas of the third world
(with rare importations to industrialized counties).  The person to person
transmission, coupled with a vaccine that was effective for a substantial period
after exposure, permitted the strategy of vaccination around a case, so that the
disease was eradicated with a relatively small proportion of the population
vaccinated.  This was a superb example of using a social (contact) network to
define risk and to the define the intervention.  Figures who are central in
contact networks, of the type you mention, may be important because of viral
replication during the two week incubation period and that might be more the case
now than it was in the 'heyday' of smallpox transmission.  What shape spread would
take in the event of a recrudescence is hard to say, since the virus can be spread
through convection systems, scabs,  fomites and other means as well.  I expect
there is a lot we would need to relearn.

Rich Rothenberg

Valdis wrote:

> http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991680
>
> http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/414748a
>
> Unfortunately small pox infection depends more on contact networks than social
> networks.  Of course they overlap, yet I can't name half of the people I came
> into F2F contact with on my last cross-country business trip [taxi-driver,
> hotel clerk, receptionist, airline stewards, etc.].  Are people in these roles
> the key hubs in spreading the disease before an outbreak is detected?
>
> Valdis Krebs
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.orgnet.com

--
Richard Rothenberg, MD
Professor
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
Emory University School of Medicine
69 Butler St. SE
Atlanta, GA 30303
TEL: 404-616-5606
FAX:404-616-6847
Email: [log in to unmask]