Smallpox has gone, but monkeypox is now rearing its ugly head
ONE of the greatest public-health victories of the last century was the eradication of smallpox. After the disease was pronounced extinct, in 1980, people stopped using the smallpox vaccine. That seemed the ultimate symbol of technology’s triumph over a medieval scourge.
Alas, it turns out that the end of vaccination has unleashed new demons. Researchers have long suspected that smallpox vaccine also provides protection against diseases such as monkeypox and cowpox, and three decades ago a committee of experts weighed up whether ending vaccination for smallpox might allow one of those diseases to spread in humans. They decided this was unlikely. Now, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests they may have been wrong. A team led by Anne Rimoin of the University of California, Los Angeles, conducted surveys of people living in the centre of the Democratic Republic of Congo. They found a dramatic surge in monkeypox—a disease which, though not as bad as smallpox, kills up to 10% of those it infects. …
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