Smallpox – eradicated in 1977. CoVID could be next – but how
– excellent article here
from Vox.com with this headline:
“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. Now it’s gone.
Short introduction:
The coronavirus has devastated the world and killed about 2.3 million people globally.
It has infected more than 100 million others, and new variants (Delta &
Omicron) now threaten another surge in cases even as vaccines are widely
available. Yet for all of the devastation Covid-19 has wrought, it’s hard to
escape the feeling that it could have been so much worse.
Excellent case
history for Smallpox: Smallpox has been around for a very long time.
It’s believed that
pharaohs died of it in ancient Egypt.
It devastated the Americas in the early 1500’s after being introduced through contact with Europe.
It altered
the course of the Revolutionary War, with outbreaks in New England that
cost the Continental Army the Battle of Quebec.
Its toll throughout history is hard to measure.
In the 20th century alone it is estimated to have killed between 300 million and 500 million people.
To date, it is the only
virus totally eradicated in human history.
“In the contest of Smallpox versus War, War lost,” D.A.
Henderson, former director of disease surveillance at the CDC wrote in his
2009 book Smallpox:
The Death of a Disease, noting that even the most devastating wars of the
20th century — World War I and World War II — had a combined death toll much
smaller than that of smallpox.
How we eradicated smallpox: Before modern vaccine development, humans had to get creative in slowing the spread of infectious disease. It was known that people who’d survived smallpox didn’t get sick again.
In China, for example as early as the 15th century, healthy people
deliberately breathed smallpox scabs through their noses and contracted a
milder version of the disease. Between 0.5% and 2% died from such
self-inoculation, but this represented a significant improvement on the 30% mortality
rate of the disease itself.
Then in England in 1796, doctor Edward Jenner demonstrated
that contracting cowpox — a related but much
milder virus — conferred immunity against smallpox, and shortly after
that, immunization efforts began in earnest across Europe.
By 1813, Congress passed legislation to ensure the
availability of a smallpox vaccine that reduced smallpox outbreaks in the
country throughout the 1800’s.
How
deadly pathogens have escaped the lab over and over again:
Richard Horton, Editor
of “The Lancet,” said
in December: “The coronavirus we are grappling with today is not smallpox.
Those old enough to remember the story of smallpox eradication will recognize
many of the lessons we’re rapidly learning now, from the importance of vaccine
distribution and infrastructure to the essential role of international
coordination and leadership at the WHO.”
A global Covid-19 suppression effort — and a better response
to future pandemics — requires a CDC and WHO that is well-funded, attracts top
scientific talent, and isn’t
subject to political manipulation that gets in the way of accurate
disease surveillance.
Another critical takeaway is that once the work has
succeeded, we have to make sure never to undermine it. After telling the
history of the eradication of smallpox, Henderson’s account switches to a
different theme: the vials remaining in the hands of governments.
He wants them destroyed lest some accident or malicious act
unleash smallpox on the world again.
There have been
some close calls – for example:
A year after smallpox was declared eradicated (in 1978), bad
lab safety procedures led to another outbreak in Birmingham, the UK).
Then a few years ago improperly stored vials were found in a
U.S. lab.
We need to take
biosecurity and pathogen research much more seriously: In the broader
context of humanity’s fight against infectious disease, it’s fair to think
of the coronavirus as a close call.
As bad as it has been, it could have been much worse. It
could have been more transmissible; it could have been deadlier. Diseases far
worse than Covid-19 have appeared throughout human history, and there’s every
reason to believe we may someday face one again.
The devastation of Covid-19 has hopefully made us aware of
the work public health experts and epidemiologists do, the crucial role of
worldwide coordination and disease surveillance programs (which have historically
been underfunded), and the horrors that diseases can wreak when we
can’t control them. We have to do better. The history of the fight against
smallpox proves that we’re capable of it.
My 2 Cents: I hope you enjoyed this historical lesson on viruses.
These kind of stories are my favorite since they put and keep the issue in a
more prospective view for us. Very timely to read this, too.
More anti-vaxxers should
read these stories and comply to help save themselves and their fellow human
being, and especially they need to stop making it political since it is not –
not by a long shot.
Thanks for stopping by.
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