1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom

In 1978, an outbreak of smallpox in the United Kingdom resulted in the death of Janet Parker, a British medical photographer, who became the last recorded person to die from the disease.

The Shooter Inquiry found that Parker was accidentally exposed to a strain of smallpox virus that had been grown in a research laboratory on the floor below her workplace at the University of Birmingham Medical School.

However, this assertion has been subsequently challenged, including when the University of Birmingham was acquitted following a prosecution for breach of Health and Safety legislation connected with Parker's death.

[14] On 20 August at 3 pm, she was admitted to East Birmingham Hospital and a clinical diagnosis of Variola major, the most serious type of smallpox, was made by consultant Alasdair Geddes.

[15] By this time the rash had spread and covered all Parker's body, including the palms of her hands and soles of her feet, and it was confluent (i.e. the lesions had merged) on her face.

[7] The next day, poxvirus infection was confirmed by Henry Bedson, then Head of the Smallpox laboratory at the Medical School, by electron microscopy of vesicle fluid, which Geddes had sampled from Parker's rash.

[21] On 26 August, health officials went to Parker's house in Burford Park Road, Kings Norton, and fumigated her home and car.

[7] The ward at Catherine-de-Barnes Hospital in which Parker had died was still sealed off five years after her death, all the furniture and equipment inside left untouched.

[7] On 5 September 1978, Parker's 71-year-old father, Frederick Witcomb, of Myrtle Avenue, Kings Heath, died while in quarantine at Catherine-de-Barnes Hospital.

On 6 September 1978, Henry Bedson, head of the Birmingham Medical School microbiology department, cut his throat in the garden shed while in quarantine at his home in Cockthorpe Close, Harborne.

In Bedson's Munk's Roll biography published by the Royal College of Physicians, virologist Peter Wildy and Sir Gordon Wolstenholme wrote:[24]Journalists launched a relentless effort to fix the blame on him and his staff for a breach of technique, and union officials stirred up public fears by confusing the issues with those then arising from genetic manipulation.

It could be said that he was a victim of his own dedicated conscientiousness, and of his extreme sense of responsibility.An official government inquiry into Parker's death was conducted by a panel led by microbiologist R.A. Shooter,[2] and comprising Christopher Booth, Sir David Evans, J.R. McDonald, David Tyrrell and Sir Robert Williams, with observers from the World Health Organization (WHO), The Health and Safety Executive and the Trades Union Congress.

[2] A foreword by the Secretary of State for Social Services, Patrick Jenkin, noted that the University of Birmingham disputed the report's findings.

[2] Since Shooter's Report potentially played an important role in the court case against the university for breach of safety legislation,[7] its official publication was postponed until the outcome of the trial was known, and it was not published until 1980.

[27] Nicolas Hawkes wrote, in 1979, that:[28] Shooter's report was leaked to the press by Clive Jenkins, the general secretary of the trade union to which Mrs. Parker belonged.

[14][29] Evidence presented by several internationally recognised experts, including Kevin McCarthy,[30] Allan Watt Downie and Keith R. Dumbell, showed that airborne transmission from the laboratory to the telephone room where Parker was supposedly infected was highly improbable.

[31] In August 1981, following a formal claim for damages made by the trade union Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs in 1979, Parker's husband, Joseph, was awarded £25,000 in compensation.

[33][21][34][31] Shooter's criticisms of the laboratory's procedures triggered radical changes in how dangerous pathogens were studied in the UK,[28][29] but the inquiry's conclusions on the transmission of the virus have not been generally accepted.

How that came about, I don't know, we shall never know, but I think from those facts it is an inevitable inference and nothing else really stands up to any commonsense view.In light of this incident, all known stocks of smallpox were destroyed or transferred to one of two WHO reference laboratories which had BSL-4 facilities: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Russia.

The East Wing of the University of Birmingham Medical School , which was the source of the outbreak
Ward 32 at East Birmingham Hospital where Parker was admitted in 1978. The building, which comprised Wards 31 and 32, has since been demolished.
The ward block at East Birmingham Hospital, Birmingham UK in 1978. It has since been demolished. It shows Wards 31 (ground level) and 32 (upper level).
The exterior of Wards 32 and 33 at East Birmingham Hospital during the 1978 smallpox outbreak
The rear of the Medical School showing the location of the smallpox laboratory (bottom) and the rooms where Parker worked (above)
Plan of the Birmingham smallpox laboratory in 1978, based on one in the Shooter Report. [ 2 ] A = smallpox laboratory; B= animalpox laboratory; C = tissue culture laboratory; E = corridor with swing barrier; D = internal service ducts with access hatches. The position of two safety cabinets is shown at the top with extraction ducts to the windows (black arrows). The circles represent centrifuges and the squares various incubators and refrigerators. The laboratory was about 9.5 metres wide.
Schematic diagram of the East Wing of Birmingham University Medical School in 1978. The positions of the ventilation ducts are labelled A, B, C and D. [ 25 ]