Smallpox facts for kids
Smallpox was a dangerous infectious disease that affected humans for thousands of years. It was caused by the variola virus, a member of the Orthopoxvirus group. People who caught smallpox developed a high fever and a deep skin rash. The disease caused fluid-filled blister spots all over the body. It was very contagious, spreading directly from person to person through tiny droplets in the air.
Smallpox is one of the deadliest illnesses in human history. It caused hundreds of millions of deaths over many centuries. However, it is also the center of one of the greatest victories in science. Thanks to a worldwide effort led by the World Health Organization, doctors completely wiped out the disease. The last naturally occurring case appeared in October 1977. By 1980, global health experts confirmed the complete eradication of smallpox. It became the very first human disease ever completely eliminated from nature.
Smallpox greatly affected how Western civilization grew. From the 10th to the 18th century, smallpox caused over 400,000 deaths each year. Experts believe the total number of deaths from smallpox could be between 300 and 500 million people.
Contents
What Were the Signs of Smallpox?
Smallpox made people feel very sick shortly after catching it. The illness usually followed a set schedule of symptoms.
After touching the virus, a person felt healthy for an incubation period lasting between 7 and 14 days. During this time, the virus multiplied quietly inside the body. Suddenly, the person developed a high fever, headaches, feeling very tired, and intense muscle pain. People often felt sick to their stomachs with vomiting and severe back pain. Tiny red spots called an enanthem then began popping up inside the mouth, tongue, and throat. When these spots broke open, large amounts of the virus spread into the saliva.
Soon after mouth sores appeared, a bumpy rash showed up on the skin. It usually started on the forehead and face before moving down the body. The spots first looked like small flat marks called macules. Over several days, they turned into raised papules, and then filled with thick liquid to form vesicles.
Within a week, these blisters turned into firm, rounded pustules that felt like hard round beads deep in the skin. Eventually, the bumps opened up, leaked fluid, and formed crusty scabs. When the scabs dried up and fell off, they left behind permanent pitted white scars.
What Caused the Disease?
Smallpox happened because of an infection by the brick-shaped variola virus. It was a large virus with a core of linear double-stranded DNA. It carried around 200 different genes inside its shell. This virus only infected humans and could not live in animals or bugs in the wild.
There were two main varieties of the disease:
- Variola major: This was the most common and severe form, causing serious illness and high death rates.
- Variola minor: Also called alastrim, this form caused a much milder rash, and far fewer people died from it.
How the Germ Spread
Smallpox was an airborne illness. When an infected person coughed, talked, or sneezed, tiny droplets floated into the air. Another person breathing in those droplets could catch the virus. The virus invaded through the nose and throat, travelling into regional lymph nodes. It then broke out into the bloodstream, an event called viremia, which carried the virus straight to the skin and other organs. Touching infected bedding or clothes, known as fomites, could occasionally pass the germ along.
History of Smallpox
Scientists believe smallpox first appeared in Africa. It might have come from a rodent living near the Nile River. From Africa, it then spread to China and India thousands of years ago. The first recorded outbreak of smallpox happened around 1350 B.C. during a war between Egypt and the Hittites.
About 2,000 years later, smallpox reached Europe. It caused many problems there from the 5th century until the 19th century. From Europe, the disease then spread to major cities worldwide. This included the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries.
How Vaccination Ended Smallpox
The battle against smallpox led to the creation of the very first vaccine in human history.
For centuries, people used a risky method called inoculation to protect themselves by introducing small bits of real smallpox scabs into the skin. In 1796, an English doctor named Edward Jenner noticed something fascinating about farm workers. Dairy workers who caught a mild animal blister sickness called cowpox never caught deadly smallpox.
Jenner tested this idea by scratching a small amount of cowpox into the skin of a young boy. Later, when exposed to smallpox material, the boy stayed completely healthy. Jenner called this new method vaccination, taken from the Latin word vacca, meaning cow. Modern versions of the vaccine used a related virus called vaccinia.
Starting in 1967, the World Health Organization launched an intense global program to stop the disease. Teams of doctors traveled to villages across South America, Africa, and Asia to track down every single case. They used "ring vaccination," vaccinating every neighbor living around a sick person to block the virus from spreading.
The plan worked completely. The last natural case occurred in Somalia in 1977. On May 8, 1980, world health leaders proudly declared the planet free of smallpox. It remains one of only two infectious diseases ever totally wiped out, alongside the animal illness rinderpest.
Impact on the World
Smallpox shaped human civilization for thousands of years. Scientists found evidence of smallpox scars on ancient Egyptian mummies from over 3,000 years ago, including the pharaoh Ramses V.
The disease spread along ancient trade routes between Asia, Africa, and Europe. During the Columbian exchange, European explorers carried smallpox to the Americas. Because Native Americans had never met the virus before, their bodies had no natural defenses. This caused devastating epidemics that killed millions of Indigenous people.
Smallpox touched people from every walk of life. It took the lives of powerful European rulers as well as ordinary farmers. Famous survivors who carried smallpox scars included American president George Washington and musician Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In many places, such as India, people even worshipped special protectors like the goddess Shitala to shield them from the fever. Today, because of modern science, children all around the world grow up completely safe from this ancient threat.
Images for kids
-
Parts of a modern smallpox vaccination kit. This includes the liquid, a bottle of vaccine, and a special needle.
-
An 1802 cartoon by James Gillray about Edward Jenner's vaccination. It shows cows coming out of patients who received the cowpox vaccine.
-
A statue of Sopona, the Yoruba god believed to cause smallpox.
-
Getting vaccinated during the Smallpox Eradication Program in Niger, 1969.
-
A smallpox quarantine sign from California, around 1910.
-
Three former directors of the Global Smallpox Eradication Program read the news that smallpox was gone, 1980.
-
Smallpox virus marks on the chorioallantoic membrane of a developing chick.
.jpg)
See also
In Spanish: Viruela para niños
