Oncology & Cancer

Genetically engineered virus kills liver cancer

A genetically-engineered virus tested in 30 terminally-ill liver cancer patients significantly prolonged their lives, killing tumours and inhibiting the growth of new ones, scientists reported on Sunday.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

The history of vaccinations and how smallpox was eradicated

It was called the "most dreadful scourge of the human species." It killed at least one-third of the people it infected. It decimated entire populations, striking old and young, rich and poor alike.

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Does decades-old smallpox vaccination protect against monkeypox?

Health officials are scrambling to stretch scarce doses of vaccine to slow the mounting monkeypox outbreak, but do older people already vaccinated as kids for the related but deadlier smallpox virus already have protection?

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

A necessary retelling of the smallpox vaccine story

A curious confluence of events unfolded Tuesday night. Just hours before President Obama uttered the powerful "science and reason matter" in his farewell address, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the incoming president ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Man who got smallpox vaccine passes milder infection to sex partner

(HealthDay)—A man recently vaccinated for smallpox under a U.S. Defense Department program passed a milder, related form of the disease on to a man he had sex with, and that man then passed it on to yet another man, federal ...

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Smallpox

Smallpox is an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or varus, meaning "pimple". The term "smallpox" was first used in Europe in the 15th century to distinguish variola from the "great pox" (syphilis).

Smallpox localizes in small blood vessels of the skin and in the mouth and throat. In the skin, this results in a characteristic maculopapular rash, and later, raised fluid-filled blisters. V. major produces a more serious disease and has an overall mortality rate of 30–35%. V. minor causes a milder form of disease (also known as alastrim, cottonpox, milkpox, whitepox, and Cuban itch) which kills about 1% of its victims. Long-term complications of V. major infection include characteristic scars, commonly on the face, which occur in 65–85% of survivors. Blindness resulting from corneal ulceration and scarring, and limb deformities due to arthritis and osteomyelitis are less common complications, seen in about 2–5% of cases.

Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC. The disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year during the 18th century (including five monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Of all those infected, 20–60%—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease.

During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox was responsible for 300–500 million deaths. In the early 1950s an estimated 50 million cases of smallpox occurred in the world each year. As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year. After successful vaccination campaigns throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, the WHO certified the eradication of smallpox in December 1979. To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious disease to have been completely eradicated.

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