What is Smallpox?
... Smallpox is a serious, contagious, and sometimes fatal infectious disease caused by a virus called the variola virus. The disease gets its name from the Latin word for spotted and refers to the small ...

Fast Facts on Smallpox Disease
... Part One of a two-part series What is smallpox? Smallpox is a serious, contagious and sometimes fatal infectious disease. There is no specific treatment for smallpox disease, nor is there a cure. The ...

Fast Facts: The Smallpox Vaccine
... Part two of a two-part series Quick review: Smallpox is a highly contagious and sometimes fatal viral disease whose symptoms include fever, severe fatigue, and a conspicuous, pustular rash. It is cau...

Overview
... Smallpox is a contagious, disfiguring and often deadly disease caused by the variola virus. It''s believed to have first appeared in northeastern Africa or south-central Asia nearly 12,000 years ago. ...

Effectiveness of Safer Smallpox Vaccine Demonstrated Against Monkeypox
... A mild, experimental smallpox vaccine known as modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) is nearly as effective as the standard smallpox vaccine in protecting monkeys against monkeypox, a study by researchers of...

An Update on Smallpox
... By Michelle Meadows The last confirmed case of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949, and the last naturally occurring case in the world was recorded in Somalia in 1977. Three years later, th...

Smallpox
... For the most recently updated information on smallpox, please see the smallpox site on the CDC Public Health Emergency Preparation and Response site at http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp. ...