Strains of smallpox should be eliminated and here is why. The resurgence of infectious diseases has been a huge problem in the 21st century. Imagine what the world would look like with the return of one of the globes most brutal disease; A disease like smallpox that could spread so easily through the air. Smallpox had both a high prevalence and incidence rate in the United States and many other parts of the world. Quantitative data and statistics display that about 30 percent of people with smallpox died from the disease and many others developed other problems. Many challenges were faced with the elimination of smallpox in its early years such as political and fund problems, many cases were not being reported, and it was not a top priority for the World Health Organization. Fortunately, after a couple of years, the World Health Organization and …show more content…
Variolation was a way to eliminate smallpox but it still led to deaths in about one to two percent of individuals. The smallpox infection was eventually eradicated through vaccination developed by Edward Jenner, and through many other public health services such as surveillance, prevention, cooperation, and health programs. The eradication of smallpox was significant in the world at the time but there are still many problems that have caused controversy today. One of those problems includes the remaining strains of smallpox that is located at the CDC in Atlanta and another in Russia. Throughout history, the infection dilemma has gone from being spread through sneezing and coughing, and now it may be able to spread through an attack. An attack of bioterrorism would be a disaster on any part of the world, which was seen by the attacks in September 2001. According to Thompson (2016), “If a smallpox outbreak were to occur today, the potential damage would be
Boston Smallpox Epidemic of 1721: When smallpox broke out in Boston, Cotton Mather introduced an untested medical procedure called “inoculation”, which would introduce a small amount of the virus to a patient, in hoping they would become immune to it. Many were opposed to it, even though it worked. Many people died due to the epidemic. 31. Common Sense: Thomas Paine wrote a book called "Common Sense", it sold more than 150,000 copies when the population was only 3 million.
In the book, Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 by Elizabeth Fenn (2001), depicts the casualty of one of the deadliest virus in mankind -- the smallpox during the American War of Independence and how it shaped the course of the war and the lives of everyone in the North America. Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by an Orthopoxvirus known as variola major virus. Spread by direct transmission, the disease produces high fever, headache, excruciating back pain, anxiety, general malaise, blindness at times, and the most distinctive of all, blistering rashes that can leave deep-pitted scars. Its spread could be attributed through human civilizations, voyaging, expansion of trade routes. The European colonizers brought
One major disease was small pox. Smallpox, an acute contagious viral disease, with fever and pustules usually leaving permanent scars. It was effectively eradicated through vaccination by the year 1979. Many people died from this disease. “A violent kind of smallpox rages in Charles-Town that brings most of the businesses to a halt.
Early Europeans and Cortes had brought over smallpox, which is an airborne virus that causes fever, vomiting, and blisters that cover your body in fluid. One in three people die from smallpox, making it a very deadly disease. Europeans had been exposed to smallpox and had built immunities against it, but the Aztecs' immune systems had never experienced such a virus, making them especially vulnerable to the disease. The Aztec population was reduced to 60% of its original numbers in a span of one year. "Mayan and Incan civilizations were also nearly wiped out by smallpox..., reducing some indigenous populations in the new world by 90 percent or more."
Edward Jenner, an english doctor found a less risky form of variation. He learned that cowpox, a milder form of smallpox, they wouldn’t develop smallpox.
The CDC has determined “smallpox is an acute, contagious, and sometimes fatal disease caused by variola virus” (question and answers about smallpox disease). Smallpox has been around for thousands of years. The cause of Smallpox is Variola. Since Smallpox is from Variola it is from Orthopoxvirus. The last outbreak has not occurred recently.
But the indigenous population fared much worse. Nearly 90% would be eradicated by smallpox. A result of having no immunity to the newly introduced virus.
We Americans now depend on most electronics to go about our lives. We use electronics to communicate, find information, socialize, and now to do homework. Back in the day before the United States were born people like Ben Franklin and others were creating these wonderful inventions to help easy the life of colonial people. The Middle Colonies needed a plow to fasten the process of farming crops. The virus smallpox started an epidemic and a vaccine would help lower the risk of people getting the disease.
Writers from the History webpage claim, “Famous early American Cotton Mather described it as ‘turning yellow then vomiting and bleeding every way.” The only way individuals during the Antebellum era knew that people had been infected was by their symptom, and based upon the symptoms they would experiment until they found a cure. Lastly, Smallpox during the 1990’s was used as a defense mechanism in the
More and more people were also getting infected by the incurable smallpox disease. Twenty-five percent of the Aztecs were lost due to this specific illness alone. An emperor, and many other army leaders were killed by
Smallpox, or Variola major, is a deadly viral disease . The virus is shaped like brick covered in small spikes, and has been infecting humans for thousands of years. Smallpox even affected the course of the Revolutionary War. The disease had been killing many of George Washington’s men, and only when he had them protected from smallpox, could the Americans keep fighting for freedom. Smallpox has a very riveting history.
Smallpox continued to be a problem throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, affecting populations on a large scale.” It was one of the primary annihilator’s of the native indigenous population of the Americas during the first arrivals of the Europeans who brought it with them. One notable incident which many believe led to a severe outbreak of the smallpox amongst various Indian tribes in the Ohio Valley in 1763 was the case of the British Army giving away blankets from a pox hospital with the hopes of passing the disease onto the Indians they were fighting. Gill (2004) shares purported correspondence between two British officers with the following:
Before that, people used variolation to prevent getting a more serious version of smallpox. Variolation is when the patient is inoculated with live smallpox. But in a lot of cases around the world, the plan backfired, leading the individual to contract a full-blown case of the
Once the child recovered from the cowpox disease, Jenner then tried to infect the child with smallpox, but the young man proved to be immune. “It seemed that this attempt at vaccination had worked. But Jenner had to work on for two more years before his discovery was considered sufficiently tested by the medical profession to permit widespread introduction.” (Alexander, 2003). Beginning in 1831 and ending in 1835, due to increasing vaccination, smallpox deaths were down to one in a thousand.
Smallpox outbreaks have occurred from time to time for thousands of years, but the disease is now eradicated after a successful worldwide vaccination program. The last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977. After the disease was eliminated from the world, routine vaccination against smallpox among the general public was stopped because it was no longer necessary for prevention. In 1970, when smallpox was nearly eradicated, a previously unrecognized orthopoxvirus named monkey pox was identified in humans.