Smallpox in Chad

[CharlesHarris]

Searches of CDC and WHO databases fail to provide any authentication of rumours regarding any naturally occurring recent outbreaks of smallpox, anywhere.

The possibility of an accidental release from a laboratory or weaponized use is incorporated in preparedness and response scenarios: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/5/4/99-0416_article

According to the Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_small...ed_Kingdom
The 1978 smallpox outbreak in the United Kingdom claimed the life of Janet Parker (1938–1978), a British medical photographer, who became the last recorded person to die from smallpox. Her illness and death, which was connected to the deaths of two other people, led to an official government inquiry and triggered radical changes in how dangerous pathogens were studied in the UK.[1][2] The government inquiry into Parker's death by R.A. Shooter[3] found that while working at the University of Birmingham Medical School,[4][5] she was accidentally exposed to a strain of smallpox virus that had been grown in a research laboratory on the floor below her workplace, and that the virus had most likely spread from that laboratory through ducting. Shooter's conclusion on how the virus had spread was challenged in court when the University of Birmingham was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive for breach of Health and Safety legislation.[6]

Researchers in Siberia are concerned that melting permafrost could release old pathogens into the environment
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world.../88941164/