#smallpox

On May 8th, 1980, smallpox was declared eradicated. Meaning there is no natural spread of smallpox anywhere in the world.

Smallpox infections date back at least 3,000 years. There are smallpox scars on the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses V.

The last documented person to have naturally contracted smallpox was 23-year-old hospital cook Ali Maow Maalin, who survived the disease in October of 1977.

The last person to die of the disease was 40-year-old medical photographer Janet Parker, infected in a lab accident in the summer of 1978.

Smallpox was a terrifying disease. It was horrifically painful and killed 1/3 of the people it infected, leaving the rest badly scarred.

We got lucky with smallpox. It had no animal reservoir. Being that it only infected humans we were able to vaccinate our way to eradication.

Today variola major, the virus that causes smallpox, officially exists in 2 places: the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and the Vector Institute, Koltsovo, Russia. It is likely that many other countries have samples as well.

Deliberate infection with cowpox to prevent smallpox was the first effective vaccine. We owe every other vaccine to this one breakthrough.

The smallpox vaccine causes a scar at the injection site. You probably know someone with a smallpox vaccine scar. Routine childhood vaccination for smallpox ended in 1972 in the USA.

We used the smallpox vaccine to vaccinate against mpox in 2022. Because of this, I have given the smallpox vaccine. We also vaccinate researchers and others at high risk.

These two boys have been exposed to the same smallpox source.

One was already vaccinated, while the other was not. This photograph shows the real difference, and the importance that vaccination makes. During over 7000 years of human history, we have only eradicated one disease; smallpox. In 1801, Edward Jenner hoped his discovery of vaccination would bring nothing less than the annihilation of smallpox. His hope was realized in 1980 when smallpox was officially declared dead by the World Health Assembly.

This picture was taken in Leicester, 1892