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Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. [7] [11] The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980, [10] making smallpox the only human disease to have been eradicated to date.
Systematic eradication and control efforts include the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission and efforts to eradicate smallpox. [4] Antitoxins and vaccines for numerous diseases including cholera and tuberculosis are developed during this period, building on a trend of greater understanding of and control over microorganisms .
Smallpox is the first disease, and so far the only infectious disease of humans, to be eradicated by deliberate intervention. [6] It became the first disease for which there was an effective vaccine in 1798 when Edward Jenner showed the protective effect of inoculation ( vaccination ) of humans with material from cowpox lesions.
Smallpox eradicated after years of work to stop spread In 1967, the World Health Organization began an “intensified effort” to eradicate smallpox, a contagious disease caused by the variola virus.
1975 – The last victim of variola major smallpox, the more severe form of the disease, was reported. 1976 – CDC investigated two outbreaks of a previously unknown deadly hemorrhagic fever, later known as Ebola, in Zaire and Sudan. 1977 – Global eradication of smallpox was achieved.
The clearest description of smallpox from pre-modern times was given in the 9th century by the Persian physician, Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi, known in the West as "Rhazes", who was the first to differentiate smallpox from measles and chickenpox in his Kitab fi al-jadari wa-al-hasbah (The Book of Smallpox and Measles). [27]
Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, so few people born after that year are vaccinated against it. Now the vaccine is being used to protect people from monkeypox. Here's what to know.
Aztec smallpox victims. The history of smallpox in Mexico spans approximately 430 years from the arrival of the Spanish to the official eradication in 1951. It was brought to what is now Mexico by the Spanish, then spread to the center of Mexico, where it became a significant factor in the fall of Tenochtitlan. During the colonial period, there ...