If so,
How much would it sell for?
Assuming it would be used for biological warfare, are there any other more readily available viruses that if released would have similar effects (by effects i mean deaths/chaos, not similar symptoms to smallpox)?
Which countries would be best/worst equipped to deal with a large scale outbreak of the virus?
Gods, I hope not!
Hmm… in money or in human life? Because smallpox can only live and reproduce in the human body, so if someone was selling it presumably they’d need someone incubating it, and as that person either dies or recovers they’ll need another. But maybe there’s another way to cultivate it, used by researchers.
Well, there aren’t many viruses so virulent, contagious, and with nearly all the human species vulnerable to it. A really nasty version of flu could qualify, but most flus aren’t that deadly, and they mutate so quickly you’d probably get something less nasty in short order.
Well, very few of the population have been vacinated recently enough to have meaningful immunity. Countries where medicine is advanced enough to provide supportive care, manufacture vaccine, etc. you have the downside of easy travel from place to place, making quarantine more difficult than in less developed areas.
I’d say we’d all be pretty much effed.