History of smallpox is vaccine success story

When someone asked Steve Martin, dean of the College of Pharmacy at Ohio Northern University, about monkeypox concerns recently, he replied that he himself likely won't get it because he was vaccinated against smallpox. It was an effort to deal with the devastation of smallpox that led to the development of vaccines in the first place — and thanks to vaccination, smallpox was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980. Rashes found on Egyptian mummies indicate smallpox has existed for at least 3,000 years, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. And it was deadly. On average, three of every 10 people who got smallpox died. Survivors often had severe scars. At first, people tried to control the illness with a process known as variolation, named for the variola virus, which causes smallpox. People who never had smallpox were exposed to material from smallpox sores (pustules) by scratching the material into their arm or inhaling it through their nose. These people usually developed symptoms associated with smallpox, but were less likely to die than those who acquired it naturally. In 1796, the English doctor Edward Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had gotten cowpox were protected from smallpox, the CDC reports. Guessing that exposure to cowpox could protect against smallpox, he took material from a cowpox sore on milkmaid Sarah Nelmes' hand and inoculated it into the arm of James Phipps, the 9-year-old son of Jenner's gardener. Months later, Jenner exposed Phipps several times to the virus, but Phipps never developed smallpox, the CDC reports. Vaccination gradually replaced the practice of variolation. The word "vaccine" derives from Latin "vaccinae" or "cowpox," related to the word "vacc(a)," meaning cow, according to dictionary.com. The World Health Organization "started a plan to rid the world of smallpox" in 1959, the CDC states. And in the United States, children were routinely vaccinated against smallpox until 1972, when the disease was considered eradicated here. Smallpox vaccine was typically given with a bifurcated, or two-pronged, needle, which pricked the skin 15 times. Martin remembers that day at the pediatrician's office. "I mean, it was painful," he said, adding that everyone of his generation has a scar from their smallpox vaccine. We don't vaccinate people against smallpox anymore because it isn't needed, he said. "We essentially eradicated it from the face of the Earth," he said. The CDC reports the last person to naturally acquire smallpox got sick in October 1977. The last person to die of it, believed to have become infected in proximity to smallpox researchers, died in September 1978. "Almost two centuries after Jenner hoped that vaccination could annihilate smallpox, the 33rd World Health Assembly declared the world free of this disease on May 8, 1980," the CDC reported. "Many people consider smallpox eradication to be the biggest achievement in international public health." As for monkeypox, that virus is closely related to the virus that causes smallpox, so the smallpox vaccine can protect against monkeypox, the CDC reports. Past data from Africa suggests that the smallpox vaccine is at least 85% effective in preventing monkeypox. Arthurs: 419-427-8494