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4 BCE
Smallpox background
virus that is transmitted through airborne transmission. Starts off as a high fever, progresses into rash after a couple days with pustule like blisters. affects the inside of body like kidneys, blood clotting. digestive tract. also attacks surface through blisters and infection. mortality rate at an average of 30% really depends on time period. It can not be cured but you can get a vaccine to make your body immune to small poxs -
3 BCE
Ancient Egypt
The origin of smallpox is unknown. Smallpox is thought to date back to the Egyptian Empire around the 3rd century BCE (Before Common Era), based on a smallpox-like rash found on three mummies -
Jan 1, 601
6th century Asia
Increased trade with China and Korea introduces smallpox into Japan. writing of the disease have also been archived. -
Jan 1, 701
7th century Europe
Arab expansion spreads smallpox into northern Africa, Spain, and Portugal. Introducing the disease to Europe for the first time -
Jan 1, 1001
11th centuryWar helps spread in Europe
Crusades(religious wars sanctioned by the Latin Church in the medieval period) further spread smallpox in Europe. Small compact towns where daily face to face interactions where inevitable suffered the most. the Virus spread like wildfire. -
Jan 1, 1500
16th century Slave Trade
European colonization and the African slave trade import smallpox into the Caribbean and Central and South America -
The new world
After Christopher Columbus discovery of the new world in 1492, heavy colonization in the new world brought the disease to the land. killing natives that had never been exposed to the disease before. The mortality rate for the indians were higher than usual, up to 50% -
virus break through
English doctor Edward Jenner performed an experiment, By inserting pus from a milkmaid with cowpox, a disease closely related to smallpox, into the arms of a healthy 8-year-old boy. after symptoms of the disease he later was free of small pox. Later jenner exposed the boy again to the virus but this time the boy did not contract it. he concluded that you need to be exposed to the virus before you become immune to it. -
Eradication campaign
a year when some 10 million to 15 million people contracted smallpox, the World Health Organization launched a worldwide eradication campaign based on vaccination -
Bangladesh
Last known case of variola major, Rahima Banu, a three-year-old girl from Bangladesh, was the last person in the world to have naturally acquired variola major and the last person in Asia to have active smallpox. She was isolated at home with house guards posted 24 hours a day until she was no longer infectious -
last of Virus
Gradually the disease was pushed back to the Horn of Africa, and the last known natural case occurred in Somalia. Ali Maow Maalin was the last person to have naturally acquired smallpox caused by variola minor -
Small Pox free world
World Health Organization declares the world free of smallpox after successful eradication campaign -
Possible Threats
Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 fears of the disease being used a biological weapen to kill mass amounts of people concerned the nation, the U.S since has stocked vaccines for every citizen
