Smallpox, one of the biggest killers in history, is caused by a virus called variola. Variola causes a distinctive rash and is often lethal. The name variola comes from the Latin word for “spotted” ...

Not so with smallpox. To create this vaccine, you begin with another virus that is similar to the smallpox virus, yet different enough not to bring on the smallpox disease once it enters your body.

Samples of smallpox virus are not needed for the production or further development of new vaccines or drugs because animal model poxviruses are used instead. If smallpox were to be genetically ...

Smallpox, or variola, virus has killed more human beings than any other infectious agent. Fortunately, smallpox virus has only one host-humans -- which made it possible to eradicate it. In 1967, the ...

Many other sufferers were left disfigured. Thanks to a successful, widespread implementation of the smallpox vaccine, the virus was declared “extinct” in the United States in 1952. In fact ...

Doctors waged a vaccination campaign to wipe out smallpox which succeeded by the late 1970s. • All nations were asked to destroy stocks of the virus or hand them to high-security installations ...

2004). The human influenza virus genome, by contrast, encodes only 11 proteins; and the smallpox genome encodes fewer than 200 proteins. To further analyze this large virus, investigators next ...

It also states that preparing for the return of smallpox is key to preventing the spread of other diseases caused by viruses within the same family, like the mpox virus, which became a global ...

The smallpox virus is one of the most easily transmissible infectious diseases known to humans, resulting in up to 30 percent mortality. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of ...

Symptoms of monkeypox can also be compared with smallpox — a related virus that was declared eradicated in 1980. Like smallpox, monkeypox causes pus-filled boils. But monkeypox is generally ...