Interestingly, although animals inoculated with VACVIFNα/βBPGAGmut showed clear signs of infection and weight loss, only one of these animals died (Fig. 4a) indicating an attenuated phenotype of VACVIFNα/βBPGAGmut similar to that observed with the IFNα/βBP deletion mutant. Here, IFNA1 is linked to infection.