Smallpox - Prognosis
Death from smallpox ranged as high as 35 percent of those who were infected. In the case of sledgehammer smallpox, the death rate was nearly 100 percent. Patients who recovered from the disease almost always had severe scarring from skin lesions.
Smallpox has been eliminated as a human disease. But the virus has not. Two samples remain in scientific laboratories. They have been kept for the purpose of research. Has the time now come to destroy these last two samples of variola virus also?
The World Health Organization (WHO) thinks so. WHO is an international agency that deals with health problems throughout the world. It recommended in March 1986, December 1990, and September 1994 that the virus samples in Atlanta and Moscow be destroyed. The organization was worried that the virus might fall into the hands of terrorists. It could be used to reintroduce the world's most terrible infectious disease to human populations. That risk is too great, WHO believes.
Other scientists disagree. We should not intentionally eliminate any organism, they say, even one as terrible as variola. Besides, we can learn about other viruses by continuing to study the smallpox virus.
In the summer of 1999 the World Health Organization decided to delay destruction of the remaining samples of the smallpox virus until 2003.
Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: