Small Pox

Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera ) was a highly communicable viral disease nonpareil to humans. Over the course of a week the rash forms into pustular (pus-filled) pimples resembling boils. In farthest cases the pustular pimples run together usually an indication of a fatal infection. Death may result from a secondary bacterial infection of the pustules, from cell damage caused by the viral infection or from heart attack or shock. It is caused by either of two virus variants named Variola major and Variola minor. V. major, the deadlier form, has a humanness rate of 20–40 percent, while V. minor kills 1% of its victims.

Edward Jenner, a physician is well known for innoculating children who were later revealed to the virus and they did not get infected. But in 1796, an English doctor named Edward Jenner discovered a technique to protect people from getting smallpox, and his experiments eventually led to the development of the first smallpox vaccine. The United States stopped vaccinating the generic population against smallpox in 1972 because the disease was no longer a threat. In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) annunciated that smallpox was wiped out the first (and only) time in history that an infectious disease was declared eliminated from the planet.

An acute infectious viral disease distinguished by severe systemic involvement and a single crop of skin lesions that proceeds through macular, papular, vesicular, and pustular stages. It was a winter-spring disease; there was a peak prevalence in the drier spring months in the Southern Hemisphere and in the winter months in temperate climates. Persons having smallpox are most infectious during the first week of illness, as that is when the largest amount of virus is present in saliva.

Smallpox was so named due to the pocks were small and the disease was seen as less than the "great pox" ( syphilis ). The disease has killed about 100 million people and twice the number have been scarred or blinded. The casualty rate is 30% or higher in persons with a normal immune system, and survivors often are permanently disfigured due to extensive scarring. Case fatality rates would be much greater in people with weakened immune systems (ie, those with HIV, cancer, chemotherapy).

Causes of Small Pox

The common Causes of Small Pox :

• The main cause of smallpox is caused by variola virus of genus orthopoxvirus.

Symptoms of Small Pox

Some Symptoms of Small Pox :

• Vomiting and diarrhea.
• A feeling of bodily discomfort (malaise).
• Excessive bleeding.
• Fever.
• Severe headache.
• Fatigue.
• Headache.
• Severe back pain.
• Backache.
• Delirium.

Treatmenbt of Small Pox

• Immediate contact and droplet isolation of the patient is desired.
• Vaccinia immune globulin (antibodies against a disease similar to smallpox) may help condense the disease.
• Few newer antiviral agents may hypothetically help in the event of a smallpox outbreak, but these are untested.