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The US is rumoured to be preparing for mass vaccinations against smallpox, should the deadly disease return through an act of terrorism. The disease has been eradicated from Earth, so officials would assume that a single case meant that the nation was under attack. Experts fear that terrorist groups have aquired the virus and will unleash it on a population with very little natural immunity to it. What is the origin and history of this disease, and how does a virus get wiped from the earth?
This topic holds a huge amount of interest for me. Because I was born in Papua New Guinea, back in 1974 when smallpox was still a viable threat, I received a smallpox vaccination. The large scar remains with me today.
Formerly an epidemic infectious disease that resulted in permanent scarring and often in death, smallpox was eradicated by 1979 through a worldwide programme of vaccination. Today only a few laboratories still keep stocks of the virus, for research purposes and to make new vaccine should the need for it ever arise again.
Smallpox was a disease that was caused by a virus. The virus spread when an uninfected person came in direct contact with a sick person and breathed in the virus. Usually, the virus was in tiny drops that were coughed up by the sick person. After about two weeks (the incubation period of the virus), the infected person would develop a high fever and muscle aches and pains. After about three days of fever the person would break out in a rash all over his or her body. At first it looked like red spots, but these spots gradually became blisters that were about the size of a pencil eraser. After about 5 days of rash, the fluid in the clear blisters turned to pus. The more pus spots (pustules) that a person had, the more likely they were to die.
There were two main types of smallpox virus: variola major, which killed about 20 percent of the people who were infected; and variola minor, which killed about 2 percent of its victims. If a person did not die, the pus gradually dried up to form scabs that dropped off after 1 or 2 weeks. The pustules on the face often left permanent scars known as pockmarks.
Smallpox was known to the ancient peoples of China, India, and Egypt. Pharaoh Ramses V died of it in 1157 BC. It spread wherever large numbers of people moved, and it was a particularly serious problem in cities where people lived close together. It first reached Europe in the fifth century, and it was one of the leading causes of death in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was brought to America many times during that period, first by the Spanish conquerors and later by African slaves, where it wiped out many native American populations.
The Hindu god Krishna is believed to have loved milkmaids because of their beautiful (unscarred) complexions. Milkmaids, of course, spent a lot of time around cows, which are carriers of cowpox, a virus similar to the smallpox virus. In 1796 the British physician, Edward Jenner, (Read his bio here) after noting that his milkmaids were spared the smallpox, demonstrated that if he infected the skin of someone with the scab of a cowpox sore, that person would not get smallpox.
This was the beginning of vaccination. During the next 130 years, the practice of vaccination (using a virus similar to cowpox) was gradually adopted by health workers in all parts of the world, but the disease still persisted in many places where not enough people were vaccinated.
In 1965, the World Health Organization (WHO) began a world-wide effort to eradicate smallpox. Studies by epidemiologists showed that the disease could be stopped from spreading if the people who came in contact with infected persons were all vaccinated. The WHO eradication strategy was not to try to vaccinate everyone in the world, but rather to find all of the cases as soon as they developed their rashes, and then to vaccinate all the people living in the areas where the cases lived. This plan worked dramatically, and the disease was completely eradicated from the earth by 1977.
Today, the smallpox virus exists only in two freezers in Moscow, Russia, and Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States. However, the viruses are very carefully guarded. Scientists are currently debating whether these frozen viruses should be destroyed, or kept for possible medical research purposes.
Due to the kindness of Microsoft, Miranda has been furnished with her very own copy of Microsoft® Encarta® Premium Suite 2003. This means that her research on topics of quirky interest will be vast and far reaching. For more information on Encarta or to experience it for yourself, visit: 
The US is rumoured to be preparing for mass vaccinations against smallpox, should the deadly disease return through an act of terrorism. The disease has been eradicated from Earth, so officials would assume that a single case meant that the nation was under attack. Experts fear that terrorist groups have aquired the virus and will unleash it on a population with very little natural immunity to it. What is the origin and history of this disease, and how does a virus get wiped from the earth? 
The Hindu god Krishna is believed to have loved milkmaids because of their beautiful (unscarred) complexions. Milkmaids, of course, spent a lot of time around cows, which are carriers of cowpox, a virus similar to the smallpox virus. In 1796 the British physician, Edward Jenner, (
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