Today in history:1October 26th 65438+ victory.

Today in history:1977101October 26th, smallpox has been one of the most easily spread and fatal diseases for thousands of years. Only in the 20th century, when a successful vaccine was widely used in many countries, it was estimated that smallpox still caused about 300 million to 500 million deaths worldwide. About one-third of people infected with smallpox died of smallpox (nearly three-quarters of children were infected with smallpox), and countless others were pockmarked and often blind.

Before the vaccine was invented at the end of 18, efforts to eradicate smallpox were usually limited to injecting a little to process infected smallpox pustules into uninfected pustules, hoping to be immunized. Similar practices are thought to have originated in China at least as early as the 10 century. In the early China method, they would crush infected pustules and then let uninfected people spray nasal powder. Whether by injection or snoring, although it is quite successful on the whole (compared with naturally infected diseases, the symptoms are obviously less serious, and then it often leads to relatively long-term immunity), this practice is not without risks, because vaccination sometimes leads to death (about 1/50 to 1/200 died of mutation), and occasionally diseases will break out.

/kloc-At the beginning of the 8th century, Mrs. Mary Wortley Montagu, the British ambassador to Turkey, learned about local variation practices and set out to successfully introduce this concept into Britain. She described this method and results in detail in her letter 1765438+ in April 2007:

Smallpox is so deadly and widespread among us, but it is completely harmless here because of this ungrateful invention (this is the term they gave it). There are a group of old ladies who regard surgery as their career. Every autumn and September, when the summer heat weakens, people send people to see if anyone at home wants smallpox. They held a party for this purpose. When we meet (usually fifteen or sixteen people are together), the old woman asks you with a nut shell full of the best smallpox, what blood vessels do you want to open? She immediately tore open the wound you gave her with a big needle (this will only bring you ordinary scratches), injected as much venom as possible into the vein, coated it on the needle, and then wrapped the small wound with a hollow shell, thus opening four or five veins. Children or young patients play together all day and are in good health until the eighth day. Then they started to have a fever and stayed in bed for two days, rarely three days. They rarely have more than twenty or thirty faces, and they never leave a trace. Within eight days, they will be the same as before they got sick. No one died in the experiment. You can believe that I am very satisfied with the safety of the experiment, because I intend to do it on my dear little son.

/kloc-in the 1990s of 0/9, Dr. edward jenner realized that the milkmaid had obvious immunity to smallpox. After investigation, it is found that this is because they are more exposed to vaccinia, which is a related but much less fatal disease. Although he is certainly not the first person to make this observation (nor the first person to try to immunize smallpox with vaccinia), he is the first person to understand why it works at a high level and clearly proves that those who have been exposed to vaccinia will be immune to smallpox. 1796, when he vaccinated 8-year-old James phipps (named after VacA is a Latin cow), James later had a fever, but other than that, he was fine. In order to ensure that it is really effective, Jenna injected the boy with a mutation method to induce immunity a few days later. As he predicted, the boy showed no symptoms usually accompanied by mutation. Later, he exposed young James to various materials, but again, James was not infected with smallpox. Subsequent experiments on 24 other people were equally successful, which proved once and for all that his vaccine could be used as a safe method to induce immunity to smallpox.

Due to the spread of Jenner vaccine, by the middle of19th century, many countries in the world had effective and organized vaccination plans. By the beginning of the 20th century, the disease had disappeared in America and northern Europe. However, from 65438 to 0958, smallpox was still found in 59 countries around the world. In order to reduce this figure to zero, Professor Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health of the Soviet Union, put forward a global eradication plan. At the 1 1 World Health Assembly, Professor Danov advocated making great efforts on a global scale. He convinced his delegates that compulsory vaccination is effective and feasible in those countries where diseases still exist. His suggestion was adopted at the 12 World Health Assembly from 65438 to 0959, although little progress was made in the following years. However, starting from 1966,

Under the guidance of the smallpox eradication team led by Donald Henderson, the efforts to eradicate smallpox have been strengthened. The team knew that even though the Soviet Union and the United States donated 65.438+0.5 billion doses of vaccine, the supply of vaccine was still insufficient to vaccinate everyone, so they began to focus on a proposal of Qi Danov.

That is, the Leicester system coordinates the work. First, it actively identifies infected cases and vaccinates all known and known vaccines. This "monitoring and containment" system relies on "timely detection of diseases, special notification, isolation, quarantine and disinfection measures [and]. Wipe out flies.

Therefore, by the second half of 1970, smallpox was prevalent only in isolated areas that were difficult to reach due to lack of infrastructure, famine and war (namely Ethiopia and Somalia). In the last effort of 1977, strict monitoring and containment plans were implemented in other regions. 1October 26th 1977, 10, the last case of natural smallpox in Somalia was confirmed.

However, this is not the last case of human infection with smallpox. 1978 In August, due to improper laboratory safety measures and insufficient equipment, some viruses escaped to the vent of the Medical College of Birmingham University in England, and finally infected Janet Parker, a medical photographer who was working in a room above the laboratory. Despite the best efforts of the medical community, she died only one month after being infected.

Thanks to the timely prevention of potential epidemic, including isolating nearly 1000 people and fumigating the potentially contaminated surface before Parker was quarantined, no such epidemic occurred. Janet was the only person who died of the disease, although her mother was also infected. It should be pointed out that Parker was vaccinated against smallpox before, but it has been too many years since the last vaccination, and she is no longer immune. Those who work in the laboratory, when dealing with smallpox virus, just continue to be vaccinated against smallpox, bypassing their equipment that is not enough to control the virus.

Finally, thousands of years after smallpox became a major scourge of mankind, 1980 On May 8, the 33rd World Health Assembly finally announced that "the world and people have gained the freedom to get rid of smallpox. Smallpox is the most devastating epidemic. It first swept through many countries in the form of an epidemic, leaving death, blindness and disfigurement. Just ten years ago, smallpox was rampant in Africa, Asia and South America to enjoy us.