4 1 years ago, smallpox was eliminated by human beings. How was this disease that killed hundreds of millions of people eradicated?

The virus that caused the most deaths in human history was the Spanish flu that broke out in 19 18, but it was during the First World War that 500 million people were infected and more than 50 million people died. At that time, the total population of the world was only1700 million, and fighting the plague was the mission of all people in the world. 1980, the epidemic "smallpox" which has been raging for thousands of years was completely eradicated.

The so-called smallpox is a serious infectious disease caused by smallpox virus. Generally speaking, the average incubation period after smallpox virus infection is about 12 days, but there will be obvious reactions in the early stage, such as high fever, fatigue, headache, and rapid heartbeat. After 3 days, there will be a smallpox rash that is obviously distributed all over the body.

In the early stage of the disease, there will be red patches accompanied by rashes. As time goes on, these rashes will fester until they start to scab in about two weeks, then turn into scabies with the development of the disease and finally fall off. This is an extremely painful process.

Smallpox did not spread widely in a short period of time and caused the death of patients like the Spanish flu outbreak in 19 18. But smallpox has a long history in human history. The earliest recorded smallpox outbreak occurred in ancient Egypt. Signs of smallpox rash were found on the mummy of an Egyptian Pharaoh who died in BC 1 156.

By the end of15th century, there were originally about 20 million to 30 million inhabitants in the American continent, but only one hundred years later, there were only1000000 original inhabitants left in this continent, because European colonists deliberately transmitted smallpox virus to Indians, which led to the outbreak of smallpox virus, but there was no medical measure to alleviate it, resulting in a sharp decline in population.

China has been troubled by smallpox virus for a long time in history, but if smallpox raged in the early years of Qing Dynasty, causing a large number of deaths, the emperor shunzhi and Emperor Tongzhi died of smallpox directly, and Emperor Kangxi also suffered from smallpox in his early years, but he survived by luck.

The rulers of the Qing Dynasty thought that smallpox would never be infected again, so Michelle Ye was made emperor. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, people mainly used two methods to fight smallpox virus, one was dry seedling method and the other was water seedling method. However, none of them directly curbed the development of the virus, and the medical means were relatively primitive.

Humans have never stopped fighting smallpox virus in history. From 65438 to 2008, in the 1970s, a British doctor named edward jenner discovered that vaccinia could fight smallpox virus. From 65438 to 2008, a vaccinia vaccine was developed in Britain, but the mortality rate of smallpox patients was still as high as one third.

With the progress of medical technology, many developed countries have gradually controlled the epidemic of this virus. From 65438 to 0967, the last large-scale campaign to eliminate smallpox was carried out, and smallpox virus gradually disappeared from human society. The last patient was a British medical photographer named Janet Parker.

By 1980, the World Health Organization announced that smallpox had been successfully eradicated. This infectious disease that killed hundreds of millions of people was finally eradicated, and the process of smallpox eradication can be said to be accompanied by the progress of human medical technology. We also have reason to believe that human beings have the ability to defeat any virus.