The Barometer Online

Issue date: 6/7/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Contributed Photo Microbiology professor Dr. Dennis Hruby is the Chief Scientific Officer at SIGA Technologies. SIGA is developing a drug that could compat the Smallpox virus.

In March 2007, a 2-year-old boy lay dying in a Chicago hospital bed, stricken with a rare affliction not seen since the 1990s. Known treatment avenues had failed, leaving doctors skeptical about the toddler's chances for recovery.

In addition to other signs and symptoms, the boy developed a severe systemic skin reaction that rendered him virtually unrecognizable. The rash, typical of eczema vaccinatum, blanketed the toddler's body in a harrowing shroud of purple sores and bloody skin.

Desperate to save a life not fully lived, health care officials sought out promising new drug - ST-246. The experimental drug, never before tested in children, was immediately airlifted from Oregon and was promptly administered in solute form.

To the collective relief of everyone involved, the boy's condition improved quickly.

Thanks to SIGA Technologies Inc. and ST-246, the boy who wasn't expected to make it through the weekend was discharged April 19.

He is expected to experience some permanent scarring due to the severity of the skin reaction, but will otherwise make a full recovery.

"It was the most terribly exciting, terribly frightening thing I've ever been a part of," said OSU faculty member Dennis Hruby, a 1973 OSU graduate and Chief Scientific Officer at Siga.

OSU graduate Melissa Lehew, executive assistant and officer manager at Siga, described the experience as nerve-wracking.

"We were all on the edge of our seats," Lehew said. "It was a stressful time."

Hruby, a leading pox specialist, was contacted by the Centers for Disease Control one Saturday afternoon in March. Officials debriefed him on the unique case of a boy who developed eczema vaccinatum after visiting with his father, an Iraq-bound soldier recently vaccinated for smallpox.

"The father was supposed to leave for duty, but I guess he was granted an unexpected furlough," Hruby said.

"So this guy had just gotten the smallpox vaccine, then he went home to visit with his family. Well the virus used in that vaccine, vaccinia, normally sheds from the site of inoculation for a couple weeks."

Continued...

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