Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Eradication of smallpox history
Eradication of smallpox history
Eradication of smallpox essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Although previously represented as an achievement crafted primarily by the actions the World Health Organization (WHO) and a small group of other key players, recent interpretations of the eradication of smallpox are dealing with this international cooperation and its players from different angle. Current historians are examining this achievement as one shaped not only by the mutual understanding for the need to end smallpox but also by international and local sociopolitical forces.
In his 1993 article, “Smallpox: Emergence, Global Spread and Eradication, “ Frank Fenner, a noted virologist and the Chairman of the Global Commission for Certification of Smallpox Eradication, explains the history and eventual destruction of the disease through the eyes of a scientist. For Fenner, the end of the disease lie in the creation of the Smallpox Eradication Programme (SEP), coordinated by WHO in Geneva Switzerland. Fenner acknowledges that countries in Asia, Africa and the Americas had been able to achieve country-wide elimination between 1959 and 1966, however, with a suggested eradication time frame of four to five years, WHO felt this pace would not suffice.
Subsequently, WHO created the SEP which focused primarily on those countries where endemic smallpox still existed: the Indian Subcontinent, the Horn of Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Indonesia and Brazil. Fenner provides further biological and sociopolitical factors that he found played a role: the nature of the disease itself, advancement of strategies (improved vaccine quality and distribution), “earlier countrywide elimination in Europe and North America…no social or religious barriers to the recognition of cases...The costs of quarantine and the compulsory vaccination of intern...
... middle of paper ...
...countries. On the other hand, Hochman states that smallpox in Brazil, although still acknowledged, became a low priority for the government after 1920. It was not until international political alignments within South America and as the United States’ involvment changed in the early 1960 that the country became part of WHO’s Intensified Smallpox Eradication Programme
Works Cited
Frank Fenner, “Smallpox: Emergence, Global Spread, and Eradication,” History and Philosophy of Life Sciences 15, no. 3 (1993), 410.
Sanjoy Bhattacharya, “Struggling to a monumental triumph: re-assessing the final phases of the smallpox eradication program in India, 1960-1980, História, Ciências Saúde – Manguinhos 14, no.4 (2007), 1113
Gilberto Hochman, “Priority, Invisibility and Eradication: The History of Smallpox and the Brazilian Public Health Agenda,” Medical History 53 (2009), 230.
This summer we had an opportunity to dive into the world of bioweapons, through Richard Preston’s novel The Demon in the Freezer. His book explored the colorful world of smallpox and its use as a biological weapon. Earlier this week we were graced with this authors present for an ACES event. He discussed some of the found topics in his book such as animal testing, what small pox is, and even its eradication. One of the great things we had the chance of vocalizing were our many opinions on the gloom associated with this intriguing disease.
“Future nations will know by history only that the loathsome smallpox has existed and by you extirpated”. This quote comes from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Jenner, he founder of the smallpox vaccine. It would only be 100 years later that Jefferson would see his dream fulfilled, but not without struggle. In House on Fire, author William H. Foege shares his first hand view of the lengths that society needed to go through to rid the world of the disease that had plagued it for so long. The story of the fight against smallpox extends long before our efforts for global eradication and is a representation of how society deals with widespread disease. House on
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston is an intriguing book that discusses the anthrax terrorist attacks after 9/11 and how smallpox might become a future bioterrorist threat to the world. The book provides a brief history of the smallpox disease including details of an outbreak in Germany in 1970. The disease was eradicated in 1979 due to the World Health Organization’s aggressive vaccine program. After the virus was no longer a treat the World Health Organization discontinued recommending the smallpox vaccination. In conjunction, inventory of the vaccine was decreased to save money. The virus was locked up in two labs, one in the United States and one in Russia. However, some feel the smallpox virus exists elsewhere. Dr. Peter Jahrling and a team of scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland became concerned terrorists had access to the smallpox virus and planed to alter the strain to become more resistant. These doctors conducted smallpox experiments to discover more effective vaccines in case the virus were released. Preparedness for a major epidemic is discussed as well as the ease with which smallpox can be bioengineered.
Guillemin, J. (2005). Biological weapons: From the invention of state-sponsored programs to contemporary bioterrorism Columbia University Press.
...Andrew L. “Yellow Fever and the Late Colonial Public Health Response in the Port of Veracruz.” Hispanic American Historical Review 77, no. 4 (1997): 619-644.
In closing, the variola virus affected a great amount in that era including, military strategy, trade, and native populations. Elizabeth A. Fenn’s book Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 sheds light on a significant aspect of that era that had not been given proper credence beforehand. She also illuminated the effect of smallpox when it came to race and social status. With regard to race, smallpox decimated much of the non European populations partly because of their lack of an innate immunity to that virus and Europeans lack of regard for those of a different race. Fenn’s argument on social status showed how the poorer strata’s of society suffered more severely from the variola virus because of their lack of finances to get inoculated; thus, the poor often suffered a worse strain of the virus which often lead to death.
Blackbird's book, like many similar autoethnographic texts, is a combination of autobiography, history, ethnography, and polemic. He opens with a conventional reference to inaccuracy in current histories. In the course of correcting the record he relates the story, preserved by elders of his nation, of a smallpox epidemic during the height of the French and Indian War, about 1757. Blackbird's story is unique because of the unusual disease vector.
One similarity between smallpox and the black death was that they both established new trade with countries they had rarely traded with before. With smallpox, the Americas were faced with a labour shortage due to the amount of people smallpox had killed. The labour was needed to work in silver mines and sugar plantations.To fill the shortage of labour, slaves were traded from the Guinea Coast, somewhere there was not much trade in before, but now was a bustling center of trade due to the demand for slaves. Similarly, during the black death, there was a shortage of people because of the shrunken population. There were less people buying wool, wine, and cheese, so merchants from Europe sook out customers in different areas. Some such areas were
The perspective the author gives to this book is a unique. Smallpox according to most histories does not play the role of a major character, but a minor part. In my opinion smallpox was a major factor during the Revolutionary War, and Feen focuses on several key areas which allows us to see just how bad this epidemic was and the grip it had not only on the soldiers, but the colonist as well.
Works Cited Camus, Albert. A. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert.
In order to understand the history of smallpox one first has to understand how diseases like it evolve. Much like other species, diseases that survive in the long run are the microbes that most effectively reproduce and are able to find suitable places to live. For a microbe to effectively reproduce, it must "be defined mathematically as the number of new infected per each original patient." This number will largely depend on how long each victim is able to spread the virus to other victims (Diamond, 198).
By preserving the virus, Boylston personally inoculated 247 people in 1721 and 1722 to prevent transmission. However, from there only six people died, and Boylston was the first American surgeon to inoculate his patients personally. The author portrays the background data Boylston used to examine the inoculation practice on different age and gender of persons to treat his patients from previous experiments. The inoculation method provided higher level of immunity in preventing smallpox infection. The prevention of smallpox is through inducing antibodies through vaccines which last longer for a person taking it.
During one of his earlier apprenticeships, Jenner noticed milkmaids with a disease called cowpox. Cowpox is a close relative to smallpox and is only mild in humans. Pustules appear on the hands and a basic cold is also brought on. At Jenner’s young age he was able to link these two viruses together and come up with a theory for immunization. In 1796, while still attending medical school, Jenner decided to test this theory between smallpox and cowpox. He used a dairymaid, who was a patient of his named Sarah Nelms, who had contracted cowpox and had ripe pustules on her hands. Jenner realized this was his opportunity to test someone who had not contracted smallpox yet. He picked an eight-year old boy named James Phipps to use as his test subject. He scraped open a spot of James' arm and rubbed in a dissected piece of Sarah Nelms pustule into the open wound. A couple days later James became ill with cowpox but was well again within a week. This test proved that cowpox could be spread between humans as well as cows. Jenner's next test would be if the cowpox virus gave James immunity against smallpox. On July 1st of 1796, Edward Jenner obtained an infected smallpox pustule and scratched the virus filled pus into James' arm. This technique of placing a virus into a patient is called variolation. James Phipps did not develop smallpox within the
Laura Bohannon, in her book Return to Laughter (Bowen, Elenore, 1964, Doubleday), describes a dilemma when smallpox begins to rage through an African country. She has been