THE VIRUS THAT KILLED 300 MILLIONS PEOPLE
Today in May 2021, the coronavirus Covid-19 has infected 169 million and killed 3.5 million people worldwide. The whole world is living in fear. Lots of people are placing their hopes on the vaccine and right now most people are waiting for their turn to be vaccinated so that they can go about their normal lives.
Now, let's take a look at another virus that is much worse than Covid-19. It's the smallpox virus in the 20th century, around the mid-1900s. It is believed that the smallpox virus was first discovered about 3,000 years ago and originated in India or Egypt with the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V dying from it in 1145 BC.
Smallpox is estimated to have caused 300 to 500 million deaths in the 20th century! It started 3,000 years ago and was declared eradicated with the use of vaccine. WHO declared the world to be free from naturally occuring smallpox in the year 1980, after a massive worldwide vaccination campaign started in 1977.
The death rate is about 30%, that is, 3 out of 10 people infected will die from it. You can check it out on Google or Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
In Chinese, smallpox is known as 天花病. We can see some cases mentioned in the martial arts movies of olden days. Older folks would have read about smallpox and Dr Edward Jenner in their history or science books during their primary school days.
This is how smallpox looks like…
And this is cowpox...
Dr Edward Jenner first noticed that some of the milkmaids did not get infected with smallpox and he wanted to know why. He found out that they had earlier contracted cowpox which he thought was somewhat similar to smallpox. As a result, these milkmaids had immunity and did not get smallpox. He then carried out his famous experiment by inoculating a boy with pus from a cowpox blister. The experiment was successful and the boy became immune to smallpox. It was the year 1796.
This is how cowpox looks like...
HOW RISKY IS VACCINE?
How about the risks of smallpox vaccine? The smallpox vaccine will give roughly the same reactions or side effects of our current Covid-19 vaccines. Did anyone die from smallpox vaccine? Yes, like most vaccines there is a possibility of serious side effects or even death. There have been deaths from taking smallpox vaccine but the risk is very low at only one or two deaths per million.
Some people get confused and anxious about taking the Covid-19 vaccine. Unlike the olden days, today news travels fast, far and wide. Someone having serious adverse effects from vaccine will be on the news in no time and a lot of people will get scared. There are many countries such as the Philippines and even Hong Kong that reject vaccines due to these fears.
Eventually most people come to the conclusion that it is better to get vaccinated, just like smallpox. One of the reasons is that lots of people get infected everyday, and lots of people die from it. The chances of dying from Covid-19 is very much higher (2 in 100) than the chances of dying from vaccine (2 in 1,000,000).
We hope that soon Covid-19 will be eradicated through vaccines just like smallpox.
If you have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 yet, it is advisable to do so as soon as possible. Protect yourself and your loved ones.
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