What Is Smallpox?
It is a disease caused by a virus highly resistant to disinfectants and physical-chemical conditions of the environment. It is characterized by the type of a rash.
Smallpox has been eradicated from Mexico, through the application of a vaccine developed by Jenner in 1951. Since 1977 has not reported any new case of natural smallpox. For this reason, the WHO concluded the December 9, 1979: 1. Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide. 2) There is no evidence that smallpox could again become an epidemic disease.
What causes it and how you get it?
The direct transmission is through the respiratory tract of man to man, as there are no animal reservoirs. For this reason the epidemiology indicates that infection is kept patients must infect healthy hosts. The infections are carried out more frequently in schools, hospitals and other public places. It is estimated that a sick person can infect 2 or 3 people so the spread is slow and tends to be defined.
Other means of transmission include transplacental, but when it occurs in the first quarter leads to abortion and in the final part infects the fetus in half the cases. Direct transmission occurs when the patient is inseminated through contaminated needles or lancets
Virus monkeypox is related to the smallpox virus, is capable of infecting humans, but it is hardly transmitted to humans. This source of exposure is not considered as a reservoir and that in places like Malaysia, the Philippines and Central America the presence of monkeys did not prevent the eradication of smallpox.
Posted in 
Tags: