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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.
Diseases associated with this genus include smallpox, cowpox, horsepox, camelpox, and mpox. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The most widely known member of the genus is Variola virus , which causes smallpox. It was eradicated globally by 1977, through the use of Vaccinia virus as a vaccine .
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by two strains of virus, Variola major and V. minor. V. minor was the rarer of the two strains, and causes a much less severe disease (sometimes called alastrim), with a fatality rate of around 1%. No treatment is available, and the only protection is vaccination. The virus is usually transmitted by ...
The name of the family, Poxviridae, is a legacy of the original grouping of viruses associated with diseases that produced poxes on the skin.Modern viral classification is based on phenotypic characteristics; morphology, nucleic acid type, mode of replication, host organisms, and the type of disease they cause.
The main symptom of this disease is round, hard, flesh colored, painless bumps, with sunken centers that are apparent on the surface of the skin (Figure 1). The bumps are generally less than 6 millimeters in diameter and can become red and inflamed or itchy if a person rubs them. They are generally found on the face, neck, armpits, and hands.
The blisters often begin as faint flat spots, before progressing into raised bumps and fluid-filled scabs. Other symptoms of the disease included headache, backache, extreme abdominal pain, diarrhea and vomiting. The Natives were able to deduce that the disease could be contracted through close contact with an infected individual.
Smallpox was a dangerous disease caused by the variola major virus. The most common type of smallpox, ordinary, historically has devastated populations with a 30% death rate. The smallpox virus is transmittable through bodily fluids and materials contaminated with infected materials.
Prior to that, similar ancestral viruses circulated, but possibly only in other mammals, and possibly with different symptoms. Only a few written reports dating from about 500 AD to 1000 AD are considered reliable historical descriptions of smallpox, so understanding of the disease prior to that has relied on genetics and archaeology.