Smallpox: the world’s first eradicated disease

Smallpox is a debilitating and occasionally fatal disease that’s highly contagious. Prior to 1980, the disease killed 3 out of every 10 people who became infected, according to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Overall, smallpox caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of people before it was eradicated, said Dr. Aaron Glatt, an infectious disease specialist, an epidemiologist at South Nassau Communities Hospital in New York. Despite its devastating impact on the human population, smallpox is no longer considered a threat, thanks to a worldwide immunization effort that eradicated the disease by 1977. Smallpox is the only disease known to humanity that has been completely eradicated. Symptoms Smallpox is caused by the variola virus. There are four different types of the virus, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the symptoms they cause vary in severity. The virus is transmitted through the air in moisture droplets spread by sneezing, coughing...