Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a lot more people who will soon have access to genome fabrication technology (there are already companies that do this as a service) than can break into a BSL4+ laboratory and steal one of the few remaining smallpox samples.
Would smallpox survive in a microscope slide? I remember my late grandpa had a microscope slide labeled smallpox in his basement. He was an old time doctor and had all sorts of neat things down there after he died. I don’t remember what happened but think the slide is still sitting in a storage shed or something. Always been curious about the risk of having such a slide.
> Although variolation eventually declined or was banned in some countries, it was still practiced in others. "Buying the smallpox" was still practiced in Sudan until the late nineteenth century. However, variolation survived longer elsewhere. During the World Health Organization's Smallpox Eradication Campaign, vaccination teams came across variolators in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan and their samples were confiscated. In the early stages of the campaign, live virus was detected in some, but as the campaign progressed variolators could not replenish their stocks, and although virus particles were detected in some samples, very few contained live virus. Our knowledge about the survival of smallpox virus suggests that passage of time makes it extremely unlikely that any infectious samples have survived.