Smallpox

Smallpox
You've probably heard about smallpox in the news over the past few years. You might be wondering what it is and whether you should worry about it. There can be a lot of hype about this disease, so it helps to learn the facts.
Smallpox is an infection caused by a virus known as the variola virus. For centuries, epidemics of smallpox affected people all over the globe, and the disease was often serious. But in 1796, an English doctor named Edward Jenner discovered a way to protect people from getting smallpox. His experiments eventually led to the development of the very first vaccine. The smallpox vaccine worked so well that there hasn't been a case of smallpox in the United States since 1949. The United States stopped vaccinating the general population against smallpox in 1972 because the disease was no longer a threat. The world's last known case of smallpox was reported in Africa in 1977. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox had been wiped out - the first (and only) time in history that an infectious disease was declared eliminated from the