Black Death's Genome Cracked

exceed writes: "This article on Wired, and this article on Yahoo! News states that scientists have decoded the genome of the bubonic plague bacterium. This will now (hopefully soon) lead to vaccinations and treatments for the disease it causes."

Comments

vaccine availability

[leucadiadude]

Smallpox:
CDC is the only source of vaccinia vaccine and VIG for civilians. CDC will provide vaccinia vaccine to protect laboratory and other health-care personnel whose occupations place them at risk for exposure to vaccinia and other closely related Orthopoxviruses, including vaccinia recombinants. Vaccine should be administered under the supervision of a physician selected by the institution. Vaccine will be shipped to the responsible physician. Requests for vaccine and VIG, including the reason for the request, should be referred to

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Drug Services, National Center for Infectious Diseases
Mailstop D-09
Atlanta, GA 30333
Telephone: (404) 639-3670
Facsimile: (404) 639-3717

Plague:
Plague vaccine is available in the United States from Greer Labs. Plague vaccine USP is manufactured by Greer Laboratories, Inc., P.O. Box 800, Lenoir, NC, 28645-0800, telephone (800)438-0088 or (704)754-5327. The vaccine is shipped refrigerated in 20ml vials and should be stored at 2-8 degrees C (35-46 degrees F). It should not be frozen. The following groups of people should consider vaccination:

Persons working with the plague bacterium in the laboratory or in the field. Persons working in plague-affected areas or with potentially infected animals where they have little control over their environments, particularly in developing countries.

I don't know where you might find tularemia vaccine or some of the other lesser known organisms.

A couple questions

[Z4rd0Z]

Since the article mentions there is already a vaccine for this, why is there talk that this could be used to create a vaccine? Why would we need another?

The scientists were saying they knew that the bacteria modified itself and they even knew that it did it 1500 years ago. How do they know that? Would anyone with some knowledge of this care to speculate?