Smallpox used to kill millions of people every year. Here’s how humans beat it. More contagious than Covid-19 and with a 30 percent mortality rate, smallpox was one of history’s biggest killers.

However, there are already measures in place to prevent people from re-creating smallpox. The World Health Organization recommends that no institution should be allowed to possess more than 20 ...

While there’s still a smallpox vaccine, people don’t need it anymore because there’s no one to catch smallpox from. In the United States, most people born after 1972 never got the vaccine.

Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide since 1980 and is not held in check by ... Before it was eradicated, 3 out of every 10, opens new tab people who became infected with smallpox died, ...

The success of the smallpox eradication program is evidenced by the fact that many people today don't even remember how awful smallpox was. Caused by the Variola major virus, smallpox killed a ...

But smallpox still wasn’t finished killing people in the Old World. In 1661, Chinese Emperor Fu-Lin was killed by smallpox, and his son, the new emperor, wrote the following letter: ...

The smallpox vaccine stockpile isn’t the monkeypox solution we need — yet. ... has already infected nearly 19,000 people worldwide, most of them gay and bisexual men.

Smallpox was eradicated in 1977. This amazing, global public health achievement isn’t just a page in a history book or an ...

The technology used to protect against and treat smallpox is helping the world tackle the monkeypox epidemic today. The United States has diagnosed more than 6,300 cases of monkeypox since May 18.

Even though there are 8 billion people on Earth today, a catastrophe could send that number much lower within a few decades.

Before the smallpox virus was destroyed in the early 1980s, many people received the smallpox vaccine. As a result, if you’re in your 40s or older, you likely have a permanent scar from an older ...

Smallpox had been infecting people in Asia, Africa, and Europe for centuries, but Australia, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands had been isolated from the disease. As European explorers came ...