For thousands of years, smallpox was one of the world's most dreaded scourges. Caused by the Variola virus, this highly contagious disease is characterized by an extensive burning rash that erupts into pus-filled pocks, or pustules, that smell like...

Smallpox is an acute, highly contagious, and often lethal disease caused by a virus that may be airborne but that can also be spread by direct contact or by clothing and bedding contaminated by pus and scabs. In 1979 after two years without a reported...

acute infectious disease that begins with a high fever, headache, and back pain and then proceeds to an eruption on the skin that leaves the face and limbs covered with cratered pockmarks, or pox. For centuries smallpox was one of the world's most...

Smallpox is an infection caused by the virus called variola (pronounced vuh-RY-uh-luh). Throughout history, smallpox has been a greatly feared disease. It has been responsible for huge epidemics worldwide. The disease has caused great suffering and...

Historically, smallpox was one of the most feared diseases in the ancient world. After an extensive and successful eradication program, the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of smallpox infection in 1980. There has not...

Smallpox, or variola (from Latin varus meaning pimple), is a highly contagious viral disease, one of the very worst to afflict humankind since time immemorial. It is believed to have originated in northeastern Africa with the first agricultural...

Smallpox, or variola (from Latin varus meaning pimple), is a highly contagious viral disease, one of the very worst to afflict humankind since time immemorial. It is believed to have originated in northeastern Africa with the first agricultural...

Smallpox is an infection caused by the variola virus, a member of the poxvirus family. Throughout history, smallpox has caused huge epidemics resulting in great suffering and enormous death tolls worldwide. In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO)...

Variola virus (or variola major virus) is the virus that causes smallpox. The virus is one of the members of the poxvirus group (Family Poxviridae). The virus particle is brick shaped and contains a double strand of deoxyribonucleic acid. The variola...

Once a severe, life-threatening, viral disease that had plagued humanity for centuries. The causal organism was a member of the variola virus group. In the late 1950s the World Health Organization (WHO) commenced a campaign to eradicate the disease...

One of the world's most dreaded plagues before 1980, when it was declared eradicated. It was known in ancient China, India, and Egypt. It came to the Western Hemisphere with Europeans in the 16th century and devastated the native population, which...

Smallpox is an acute infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants named Variola major and Variola minor.[1] Also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera; a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning spotted, or...