Overview

Smallpox is a contagious, disfiguring and often deadly disease that has affected humans for thousands of years. Naturally occurring smallpox was wiped out worldwide by 1980 — the result of an unprecedented global immunization campaign.

Samples of smallpox virus have been kept for research purposes. And advances in synthetic biology have made it possible to create smallpox from published amino acid sequences. This has led to concerns that smallpox could someday be used as a biological warfare agent.

No cure or treatment for smallpox exists. A vaccine can prevent smallpox, but the risk of the vaccine's side effects is too high to justify routine vaccination for people at low risk of exposure to the smallpox virus.