Smallpox
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Smallpox is a disease. It ia caused by a virus. There are two different kinds of viruses that transmit the disease, Variola major and Variola minor. Some people also know the disease as Variola, named after the viruses.
Only people can get this disease. Variola major kills between 20% -40% of those infected. Variola minor kills only about 1%. Many people who survive become blind because of the damage the virus does to the eyes.
During the first half of the 20th century, between 300-500 millon people died of this disease. Even in 1967, about 15 million people caught the disease, and about 2 millon people died of it, according to the World Health Organisation.
The first inoculations for smallpox used the results of cowpox infections. A vaccine was developed, and there was a vaccination program. In 1979, the WHO said the disease was extinct, that there were no new cases of it. Copies of the Virus are kept in different laboratories around the world.
Some people think that smallpox could be used as an agent for biological warfare. Today, people no longer get vaccinated against it, and those that are, are old.
[edit] See also
- Monkeypox
- List of diseases
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