Smallpox Disease Essay

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Smallpox
“…no man dared to count his children as his own until they had had the disease.”
-Conte de la Condamine
18 century mathematical and scientist

By: CJ Mohamed, Taylor Miller, Tamia Morgan,
Dij’Anna Mercuis, Dyrrell McCoy

Overview

• What is smallpox
• History
• Symptoms
• Transmission
• Treatment
• Results
• Prevention
• Differentiating Diseases

WHAT IS SMALLPOX?

• A contagious, disfiguring and often deadly disease
• Affected humans for thousands of years
• Naturally occurring
• Caused by infection with the variola virus. • It was eradicated worldwide by 1980
• result of an unprecedented global immunization campaign.

Organism

• Double stranded
DNA
• Orthopoxvirus
–Variola, cowpox, vaccinia, monkeypox,

• Stable out side host
• Retains infectivity

HISTORY

• First appeared in
Northeastern Africa around 10,000 BC
• Smallpox diagnosed
400 years later
• Skin lesions on
Egyptian mummies

• 1763, Sir Jeffrey
Amherst
– Smallpox in blankets for
Indians
– Later founded Amherst
College in
Massachusetts

• 18th century Europe
– 400,000 deaths

• Case fatality, 20-60%
– Scars, blindness

• Infants, 80-98% CF

“…every Tree is become an Indian…”

•
•
•

•
•
•

Edward Jenner

An English physician and scientist
From age eight he shadowed Daniel Ludlow (surgeon) as an apprentice
By over hearing a women say she could not get the dreaded Smallpox disease because she already had another disease known as Cowpox evoked a desire inside Jenner.
He discovered the first vaccine to ever be developed using cowpox
His discovery was an enormous medical breakthrough and has saved countless lives He has his own Statue in Kensington Gardens in London, England

SY
MP
TO
MS

• Smallpox symptoms are similar to flu-symptoms
• The first symptoms of smallpox usually appear 12 to 14 days after you're infected.
• During the incubation period of seven to 17 days, you look and feel healthy and can't infect others.
• A few days later, flat, red spots appear first on your face, hands and forearms, and later on your trunk.
• Within a day or two, many of these lesions turn into small blisters filled with clear fluid, which then turns into pus. Scabs begin to form eight to nine days later and eventually fall off, leaving deep, pitted scars.

Common
Symptoms
(Flu-like symptoms)

High fever
Chills
Malaise (discomfort)
Headache
Fatigue
Severe back pain

TRANSMISSION

• Directly from person to person. o Touching, kissing, sexual intercourse

• Air droplets o coughs, sneezes, talking

• Smallpox can also spread through contact with contaminated clothing and bedding, although the risk of infection from these sources is less common.
• As a terrorist weapon, potentially. A deliberate release of smallpox is a remote threat. However, because any release of the virus could spread the disease quickly, government officials have taken numerous precautions to protect against this possibility, such as stockpiling smallpox vaccine.
• In rare instances, airborne virus can spread farther, possibly through the ventilation system in a building, infecting people in other rooms or on other floors.

TREATMENTS

• Cows used in early 19th century for vaccine production
• Remains the only effective preventive treatment for the fatal smallpox disease
• 1800, new vaccine used in U.S.
• 1805, Napoleon begins vaccination of troops
• 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox an eliminated disease

•Today there is no cure or treatment for smallpox exists
• A vaccine can prevent smallpox
•The vaccine can occasionally cause serious complications
•The general vaccination program for isn't recommended for everyone at this time
• The risk of the vaccine outweigh the benefits, in the absence of an actual smallpox outbreak.
•It's likely that a previous vaccination would offer partial immunity, which
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