Baby with smallpox (CDC photo)

 The drug is a derivative of an anti-smallpox medicine called cidofovir that is given by injection. 

Scientists at the University of California at San Diego and a U-S Army bioterror defense lab in Maryland developed the drug, known as HDPCDV. 

Researchers tested the substance in mice infected with a disease similar to smallpox. Each one survived. 

Smallpox is highly contagious and kills 30 percent of its victims. 

The disease was wiped out more than two decades ago. But the U.S. government called for accelerated research on a new and more potent smallpox vaccine after the anthrax attacks in the United States last fall that killed five people and infected 13 others.
 
 

Some information for this report provided by Reuters.

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