Smallpox News and Research

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Smallpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the variola virus, a member of the Orthopox virus family. It is one of the most devastating diseases known to humanity, with a mortality rate as high as 30%. In 1967, the World Health Organization embarked upon an intensified vaccination campaign to eliminate smallpox, which culminated in the successful eradication of the disease globally by 1980.

By the mid-1980s, there were only two known repositories of variola virus: the Institute of Virus Preparations in Russia, and the US CDC. The events in the US in September and October 2001 highlighted the risk that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bioterrorism. Governments around the world are taking precautionary measures to be ready to deal with a potential smallpox outbreak.

Myocarditis among Moderna COVID-19 vaccine recipients

A new preprint reports on the incidence of myocarditis in a large population of over 150 million who received two doses of the first vaccine to receive emergency use authorization against the virus.

16 Nov 2021

Areas with higher 1968 influenza pandemic mortality have lower COVID-19 deaths

A new study demonstrates the influence of prior infectious outbreaks in a large population on succeeding pandemic outcomes.

31 Oct 2021

Israeli Pfizer COVID vaccine/myocarditis study, 136 cases out of 5 million

A new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, aimed to present clinical, epidemiological, and follow-up findings of myocarditis cases diagnosed in temporal proximity to COVID-19 vaccination and explore the possibility of a causal relationship between the two.

7 Oct 2021

Exploring the polymerase of poxviruses at an atomic level

Poxviruses have found a unique way of translating their genes into proteins in the infected organism. A team of researchers from Würzburg shows for the first time how the molecular machinery involved works at an atomic level.

24 Sep 2021

Extreme novel pandemics more likely to occur in the future, statistical study reveals

The COVID-19 pandemic may be the deadliest viral outbreak the world has seen in more than a century. But statistically, such extreme events aren't as rare as we may think, asserts a new analysis of novel disease outbreaks over the past 400 years.

24 Aug 2021

Federal vaccine program hasn’t helped those whose lives were altered by covid shot

Angela Marie Wulbrecht jumped at the first chance to get a covid-19 vaccine, driving three hours from her Santa Rosa, California, home to a mass-vaccination site on Jan. 19.

18 Aug 2021

WHO outlines the next series of studies on the origins of SARS-CoV-2 virus

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has been working with the Member States and the scientific community to better understand how this pandemic began so that we can be better prepared for the next one.

13 Aug 2021

Comparative scoring system suggests possibility of global COVID-19 eradication

The global eradication of COVID-19 is probably feasible, and more so than it is for polio, although considerably less so than it was for smallpox, suggests a comparative score of technical, sociopolitical, and economic factors for all three infections, published in the online journal BMJ Global Health.

10 Aug 2021

A quarter of US hospitals, and counting, demand workers get vaccinated. But not here.

Hospitals coast to coast are demanding their employees get vaccinated against covid as the highly contagious delta variant tears through populations with low vaccination rates.

10 Aug 2021

Vaccinia-based COVID-19 vaccines confer immunity in hamster model

In a paper recently uploaded to the preprint server bioRxiv* by Kulkarni et al. (August 3, 2021), the potential of vaccinia virus-based vaccines expressing the full-length SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is examined in mice and Syrian hamsters. The findings report that the vaccine generates high titers of neutralizing antibodies with good activity towards SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.

5 Aug 2021

CDC monitoring over 200 individuals possibly exposed to monkeypox

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is monitoring over 200 people who may have been exposed to the monkeypox virus.

22 Jul 2021

Clinical observations show acute myocarditis developed after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination

Four patients suffering from acute myocarditis after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination suggests that further investigation is needed.

29 Jun 2021

Immune response to FDA-approved vaccines is strong and potentially long-lasting

The first two COVID-19 vaccines authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) employed a technology that had never before been used in FDA-approved vaccines.

29 Jun 2021

Myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 vaccine

A group of Italian researchers has published a study in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology (CJC), that explores a rare case of progressive dyspnea and constrictive retrosternal pain after a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine.

17 Jun 2021

The potential of mRNA vaccines for a wide range of diseases

A new review article published in the journal Briefings in Functional Genomics focuses on the general characteristic features and mechanisms of mRNA vaccines. Further, this review has summarized the current progress of mRNA vaccines that have been developed for wide-ranging diseases, including COVID-19 disease.

8 Jun 2021

Experts offer plausible solutions to mitigate zoonotic risk associated with intensive animal agriculture

As early as the Neolithic period (circa 3900 BC), the domestication of animals likely led to the development of diseases including measles and smallpox. Since then, zoonotic disease has led to other major transnational outbreaks including HIV, Ebola, SARS, MERS, and H1N1 swine flu, among others.

3 Jun 2021

Vaccines can save lives and safeguard health and well-being

Effectively and safely protecting against disease--this is what makes vaccines a vital and successful public health tool that saves lives and safeguards health and well-being. Today, vaccines shield us from more than 20 life-threatening diseases.

30 Apr 2021

You don’t have to suffer to benefit from Covid vaccination — but some prefer it

If you think vaccination is an ordeal now, consider the 18th-century version. After having pus from a smallpox boil scratched into your arm, you would be subject to three weeks of fever, sweats, chills, bleeding and purging with dangerous medicines, accompanied by hymns, prayers and hell-fire sermons by dour preachers.

28 Apr 2021

World Immunization Week: Vaccination in 2021

News-Medical talks to experts in different areas of the medical sector on why immunization week is so prevalent in 2021.

27 Apr 2021

Fighting malaria in 2021: Where are we now and where are we going?

In support of World Malaria Day, News-Medical spoke to Dr. Laurence Slutsker, an internationally recognized expert in malaria, about fighting this disease in 2021.

26 Apr 2021