The defeat of smallpox

Smallpox, caused by the variola virus, was a deadly menace for thousands of years, and even more so for Indigenous peoples when they came into contact with it. It is believed to have emerged from a rodent virus more than 10,000 years ago.

The basis for a vaccine was discovered in 1796, using a mild disease called cowpox. In the 1960s, the World Health Organization set out to eliminate the disease, with a lot of help from the Soviet Union.

In some ways there were a lot of advantages to those fighting smallpox. It spread by person to person through droplets, usually to family and friends but rarely causing large outbreaks. It had no animal host, and victims were easily identified by rashes on their faces, unlike many “invisible” carriers of the polio virus.

The last known case of smallpox was found in a cook in Somalia in 1977, and three years later it was declared eradicated. Sources: WHO, New York Times