The Case for More Pox Research - Facts So Romantic
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The horsepox virus could be the basis of an improved smallpox vaccine, more effective and with fewer side effects than the currently available vaccines.Colored etching, “Edward Jenner vaccinating patients in the Smallpox and Inoculation Hospital at St. Pancras: the patients develop features of cows,” by James Gillray / WikicommonsLast year, when news broke that David H. Evans, a Canadian molecular virologist, and his colleagues made horsepox—the close cousin of smallpox—from scratch, people wondered: What for? Before it was eradicated, in 1980, in one of the major public health triumphs of the last several centuries, smallpox killed about a billion people. The worry about horsepox isn’t about horsepox itself—it doesn’t affect humans. It’s that nefarious actors, with enough expertise, could (...)