History of vaccine development
Smallpox is fading from public memory – it was declared the world’s first eradicated disease in 1980. This was due to the success of a global vaccination programme led by the World Health Organisation between 1958 and 1977.
How smallpox was spread
Epidemiology of smallpox
Because smallpox is an infectious disease, as Britain became more urbanised in the 18th and 19th centuries, it spread more easily. There were varying theories on how it spread, up until the epidemiological research of the 1880s that proved it wasn’t airborne, but transferred by direct person to person contact.
It was a common fatal and disfiguring infection. The ‘variola major’ form had a death rate of around 20 per cent. Those who survived it were covered in pock marks/scars, and up to one third became blind. In the 20th century it is estimated that it killed up to 300 million worldwide.[1]
[1] Henderson DA (December 2011). "The eradication of smallpox – an overview of the past, present, and future". Vaccine. 29 (Suppl 4): D7–9. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.06.080. PMID 22188929
History of vaccine development
Where did smallpox come from?
Discoveries by William Jesty and William Jenner in the 1770s and 1790s showed that it was related to cowpox, and the disease could be made less severe through vaccination (from the Latin vacca = cow), in which some of the live virus was transferred to an uninfected person through a scratch on the skin to provoke the body’s immune system to react to it.
Prior to vaccination what was the response?
In the mid-19th century, the disease increased to epidemic ‘outbreaks’ in some years and spread rapidly through towns and cities. In 1853 this forced the government to introduce a novel strategy of compulsory childhood vaccination in England and Wales. This was culturally unpopular – seen as exceeding the government’s usual responsibilities – the first example of a ‘nanny state’ concern. There were widespread riots when some parents were prosecuted for failing to get their children vaccinated. After 1907 parents could opt out through a ‘conscientious objection’ route, and the Vaccination Acts were repealed completely by the National Health Service Acts of 1946 and 1947.
Why are vaccines important?
As the frequency of outbreaks declined in the mid-twentieth century, governments began to question the value of routine childhood preventative vaccination, and some local authorities switched to vaccination as a form of epidemic control. This worked well, with the most of the public willingly being vaccinated when asked to in infected areas, as in Liverpool in 1961.
Benefits of vaccination