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How would smallpox be treated today?
If there were a smallpox outbreak, health officials would use a smallpox vaccine to control it. While some antiviral drugs may help treat smallpox disease, there is no treatment for smallpox that has been tested in people who are sick with the disease and proven effective.
How do people protect themselves from smallpox?
One of the best ways to prevent smallpox is through vaccination. Vaccine given to individuals before exposure to smallpox can completely protect them. Vaccination within 3 days after exposure prevents or greatly lessens the severity of smallpox in most people.
What did Who do for smallpox?
The smallpox vaccine, created by Edward Jenner in 1796, was the first successful vaccine to be developed. He observed that milkmaids who previously had caught cowpox did not catch smallpox and showed that a similar inoculation could be used to prevent smallpox in other people.
How did they treat smallpox in the Middle Ages?
Far more effective was inoculation, also called variolation, which involved taking pus or powdered scabs from patients with a mild case of the disease and inserting them into the skin or nose of susceptible, healthy people.
Is there any vaccine for smallpox?
The smallpox vaccine protects people from smallpox by helping their bodies develop immunity to smallpox. The vaccine is made from a virus called vaccinia, which is a poxvirus similar to smallpox, but less harmful.
Can you survive smallpox?
Most people who get smallpox survive. However, a few rare varieties of smallpox are almost always fatal. These more-severe forms most commonly affect pregnant women and people with impaired immune systems. People who recover from smallpox usually have severe scars, especially on the face, arms and legs.
Why is there no cure for smallpox?
Smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1979. Does it occur naturally? Smallpox no longer occurs naturally since it was totally eradicated by a lengthy and painstaking process, which identified all cases and their contacts and ensured that they were all vaccinated.
When was smallpox at its worst?
A particularly virulent sequence of smallpox outbreaks took place in Boston, Massachusetts. From 1636 to 1698, Boston endured six epidemics. In 1721, the most severe epidemic occurred….Epidemics in the Americas.
Year | Location | Description |
---|---|---|
1902 | Boston, Massachusetts | Of the 1,596 cases reported in this epidemic, 270 died. |