Thousands of years ago smallpox was a deadly disease
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About how people today run the risk of Contracting smallpox, see the 7 series season 7 of the series "Dr. house"
The entire history of its existence, mankind is faced with a huge number of dangerous diseases that were the causes of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. To stop their spread, scientists sometimes required dozens of years, but done during these years open now to help us deal with a deadly new viruses is much faster. It is important to note that in some moments of time, the human race fought so terrible viruses, they still remain poorly understood. Some of these viruses are the causative agents of smallpox — a disease that previously killed yearly by 1,5 million people. Now the disease was defeated thanks to a global vaccination in the mid-twentieth century, but evolved this disease, scientists are still not completely clear. Recently to uncover new details about the most dangerous virus of our planet was possible thanks to the remains of the Vikings. It turned out that once long ago the disease was not fatal.
Symptoms of chickenpox
Accurate information about when and from whom people were infected with smallpox, yet. The most popular theory sounds that the deadly disease was transmitted to humans around 10,000 years ago. The original carriers of the virus variola (Variola), which is the causative agent of the disease, are the camels. In General, pox can get very many kinds of animals, including the same camels, and cows, goats and pigs. The virus enters the organisms of people and animals through airborne droplets and through objects, which interacted infected. Overall this is a very contagious disease.
So, medieval artists imagined camels
After getting the virus of variola in the body, it can alarm the person about 12-14 days. However, after this period of time, the diseased falls into a feverish state, suffering from severe headaches, withdrawal symptoms in the lower back and nausea. In the first few days, the ill body temperature rises, but then it subsides. It starts with the most dreadful stage in which the skin occurs a festering rash.
The scientists was the assumption that initially, the smallpox was not so terrible disease, but eventually gained power. Let's say the first guy got the pox about 10 000 years ago, but really people suffering from it only in the last 1200 years. At the moment, to cure the smallpox is possible with antiviral drugs but, fortunately, it is not necessary. The fact that in the mid-twentieth century almost the entire world got her the vaccine and the injection is done . However, the risk of infection is also relatively low because the strains of the variola virus is only found in well-controlled laboratories in Russia and the United States. Some people even believe that there is no need to store them — it is easier to destroy them, to prevent accidental leakage.
Smallpox under a microscope.
Development of smallpox
According to research , the fact that the smallpox virus was transmitted to humans around 10,000 years ago, but was weak — the truth. Another proof of this was made by scientists from Denmark under the leadership of Professor Martin Sikora (Sikora Martin). In the course of scientific work they were studying the remains of 11 of the Vikings that were found in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia and other countries. In organisms most of them are indeed found traces of smallpox, but how dangerous was the disease in those days, unknown to them.
the Remains of a Viking help scientists study dangerous viruses.
Many of the Vikings is clearly not died because of the disease, but smallpox in their bloodstream were definitely. Based on this fact, the researchers concluded that thousands of years ago, the disease for people was not dangerous. Of course, a body rash and other unpleasant symptoms could occur, but deaths was hardly so much as a few centuries ago. After all, if you believe the statistics, even in the twentieth century, smallpox killed about 300 million people around the world.
The Last case of smallpox was recorded on October 26, 1977 in the African country of Somalia. But the last fatal case was registered a bit later, in 1978. Then a dangerous virus took the life of 40-year-old Janet Parker was a medical photographer. Yeah, having a profession, the risk of Contracting dangerous diseases is clearly very much improved.
Read More about smallpox and other dangerous viruses can be my colleague, Alexander Bogdanov. In it, he also spoke about the notorious swine flu, the Ebola virus and, of course, about the coronavirus. Happy reading!
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